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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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FORTY WITNESSES. 



COVERING 



The Whole Range of Christian Experience. 

/ 

Rev. S. OLIN GARRISON, M.A., 

EDITOR, 

(Author Probationer f s Hand-Book.) 



INTRODUCTION BY BISHOP C. D. FOSS, LLD. 




1' 



11 But ye shall receive power* after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you : 
and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea s and 
in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earthy 




/ 



NEW YORK: PHILLIPS & HUNT. 
CINCINNA Tl: CRANSTON & STOWE. 






Copyright, 1888, by 
PHILLIPS & HUNT, 

New York. 



TO THE 

ALUMNI AND STUDENTS 

OF 

DREW THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 

AND TO THE 

YOUNGER MINISTRY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH 

TO WHOM ARE 

CHIEFLY COMMITTED THE MOMENTOUS SPIRITUAL AND ETHICAL 
PROBLEMS OF THE NEXT QUARTER CENTURY, 

THIS VOLUME OF EARNEST TESTIMONY 

IS MOST 

Respectfullj' Dedicated. 



PREFACE. 



THE object of this volume is not to set forth a 
doctrine, but to reveal a life. While it is recog- 
nized that all life must have a concrete expres- 
sion, nevertheless, the book, when carefully read, 
will show the difficulty of uniformity in doctrinal 
statement, and, perhaps, the utter impossibility of 
the most devout minds agreeing upon the termin- 
ology and marks of deeper religious experiences 
especially. And yet the editor hopes that he has 
gathered into a convenient and compact shape data 
which will furnish some capable pen the material 
from which to write a truer philosophy of Christian 
experience than has yet appeared. 

Among the purposes of the book are : (i) mod- 
els of discriminating statements of experience ; (2) 
checks to extravagance in religious language ; (3) 
cautions against professing obtainments before they 
are reached ; (4) to show the easy possibility of los- 
ing the very highest graces, and (5) the wisdom of 
frank and open confession of serious lapses. 

Sincerity is of more value than maintaining a 
doctrine. Pride is often thrust into souls easily 
ambitious for a doctrine, or profession, or mode of 
statement. What is more seductive than pride of 
opinion, and what more rigid than the vain-glorious 



6 PREFACE. 

maintenance of a position once gained, or thought 
to be gained ? These u witnesses " show how easy 
it must be for weaker minds to mistake their expe- 
riences ; how few, perhaps, have a broad view of 
what it means to be " perfect in love," and how 
many, in all probability, lapse very frequently from 
even the highest state of grace. 

Moreover, the book will teach the folly, for any 
reason, of giving up seeking and preaching a state 
of grace plainly set forth in the Word, and logically 
demanded by every system of religion that strongly 
appeals to the intellect of the race. 

Furthermore, the collective volume is uncon- 
sciously at war with bigotry and exclusiveness of 
doctrinal statement ; it especially teaches, u be- 
tween the lines," charity toward the opinions and 
expressions of all men ; it recognizes that men are 
often better and truer than their statements, and 
also that men, very blunt and exact in definition, 
often succeed in winning souls, not so much because 
of their nice discriminations, as they may suppose, 
but in spite of them, and by virtue of their real 
goodness and downright earnestness. Few men 
ever clearly analyze, if indeed it be possible, the 
true secret of success in themselves or others. There 
is always large room for the influence of unconscious 
environments. 

And yet, while the book teaches charity, the 
editor will regret exceedingly if his grouping of 
witnesses shall, in this age of excessive liberalism, 
tend to take any rigidity out of the back-bone of 
a spiritual church. Let no one be discouraged, but 
sweetly hold fast that whereunto he has attained; 



PREFACE. 7 

be not afraid to investigate the reasons for the hope 
he has within him ; reconstruct his spiritual build- 
ing, if need be, and push upward until he domes in 
the perfection of love, the perfection of faith, the 
perfection of hope — a divine trinity in human expe- 
rience — which the Scriptures clearly promise in this 
life. 

While the book has not been made all that was 
intended, nevertheless it will be found scriptural, 
rich in clear statements, abounding in exact dis- 
criminations, and replete with sound sense, all of 
which will magnify its value and tend to promote 
the piety of the Church. Nearly all the "witnesses" 
are over fifty years of age, and some are past eighty. 
To encourage the children one little girl is admitted 
to the witness stand, a delicate and often danger- 
ous thing to do before such an audience, but this 
unique experience could hardly be rejected. The 
reader will notice how many were converted in child- 
hood or youth. It is also of interest to study the 
relation of epochs in the narration of experiences. 

The witnesses were asked to write out of their 
hearts, and without an eye upon their dogmas or 
theology. Each one was asked to give a plain, 
straight-forward story, chiefly of the inner life, and 
without adornment. The following is an extract 
from a circular sent to them by the editor. 

" Knowing with what relish people listen to the 
narration of personal experience, and with what 
zest thoughtful people read intelligent and discrim- 
inating accounts of the inner life, I have thought 
it wise to gather into a small compass testimonies 
to salvation from sin. The accounts of Christian 



8 PREFACE. 

experience in the religious press are not only 
ephemeral, but incomplete and inadequate. They 
seldom arrest the attention of the thoughtful. The 
very few attempts to meet this demand in book or 
pamphlet form have, so far as I have been able to 
learn, failed of their purpose largely, and, I venture 
to think, for apparent reasons. Such books and 
pamphlets have admitted argument, controversy, 
' peculiar views/ or dreams and other matter, gen- 
erally of doubtful expediency ; verbosity and relig- 
ious cant have been indulged, together with other 
irrelevant matter. Moreover, there have been 
allowed the testimonies of witnesses immature, and 
incompetent, by reason of inability to correctly 
analyze and accurately express the phenomena of 
their experiences. It is my design to secure the 
testimonies of ripe, capable witnesses, living and 
dead, and, as far as possible, throw them against 
the theoretical and practical infidelity of the age. 
Recognizing, however, that the charm of all spirit- 
ual biography has ever been a complete salvation, 
and also remembering that every philosophy should 
be judged by its best exponents, I have chosen 
those witnesses whom I have understood to believe 
the Scriptures promise ' perfect love/ or* holiness' 
or a ' second experience' (as Miss Havergal calls 
it), and who also believe themselves at some time 
to have had this higher experience. I have it in 
mind to prevent, as far as may be, premature and 
superficial testimony, and to help correct and root 
out delusions and snares, as well as remove from the 
main vision all that is non-essential, irrelevant and 
dangerous to the doctrine and life of purity. 



PREFACE. 9 

" In seeking testimony I therefore respectfully 
ask you to be careful, as a witness, to give very 
briefly the errors made in seeking salvation, mis- 
takes, if any, in deciding when the work of regener- 
ation and sanctification were respectively believed 
to be finished, and also a very true account of your 
experience in becoming established in holiness. I 
would, however, give all room for the personal 
direction of the Spirit in^ writing testimony. I do 
not question the divine unity which will appear 
in the apparent diversity of reports from holy 
people. A cast-iron uniformity is not desired. My 
earnest hope is to make the book an enduring 
spiritual classic in the literary clearness and strength 
of its testimonies, braced as well by the purity and 
power of the lives of the witnesses themselves. 

EPITOME. 

"(i.) A brief account of your conversion, giving 
the dates and places of your physical and spiritual 
births. State whether your conversion was instan- 
taneous or gradual, clear or dim, calm or demon- 
strative. 

" (2.) An account of your regenerate life ; your 
experience with the i carnal mind.' 

" (3.) An account of your sanctification, or 'sec- 
ond experience,' stating whether it was gradual or 
instantaneous, quiet or emotional, whether you mis- 
took earlier blessings for the completed work. 

" (4.) A full, but concise account of your life of 
sanctification, your lapses, the causes thereof, the 
frequency perhaps, the difficulties and triumphs in 
becoming established in holiness. It seems to me 



IO PREFACE. 

there is great need of candid testimony at this 
point. Evident, open-faced, not too discreet frank- 
ness is always a great power in testimony. Who 
can read or hear the painful, tearful witness of 
' a broken and contrite heart 9 without that melt- 
ing sense of kinship which draws us closer to each 
other and to our sympathetic High Priest? God 
has not deemed it wise to cloak the evil deeds of 
Noah, David, Peter. 

"(5.) No argument, exhortation or controversy. 

" (6.) Give full dates throughout if possible. 

" The book is not to be denominational. It is to 
be simply an apostolic experience meeting on 
paper. Witnesses will be sought from every 
Church. The Church and the world are certainly 
making a sad blunder when, as Dr. Daniel Steele 
suggests, they listen ' more attentively to the spec- 
ulations of theorizers than to the declarations of 
witnesses attesting that Jesus is a complete 

Saviour/ " 

EDITOR. 
Philadelphia, Pa., March 5, 1888. 



INTRODUCTION 



BY BISHOP FOSS. 



r^OD'S way of making any truth mighty is by in- 
\ carnating it. In order to reveal himself to men 
and angels " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt 
among us, and we beheld his glory." To all eter- 
nity the truth will stand that " no man hath seen nor 
can see " the Almighty Father. The sole manifes- 
tation of him to any created being will always be 
through the God-man, " in whom dwelleth all the 
fullness of the Godhead bodily." 

Man is the great revelation of God. All honor 
to " God's word written ; " but the practically decis- 
ive revelation of God to the individual sinner is 
not usually through the Bible, but through some 
"living epistle/' The greatest truths in the Bible 
have been thrown down before men millions of 
times, and have been only as " pearls before swine/' 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

until quickened souls have picked them up, been 
transformed by them, and held them forth before 
the astonished gaze of men, gleaming with divine 
luster. 

Of this truth the entire history of the Church 
affords no more striking illustration than the life of 
John Wesley. His fifteen years of legal bondage 
and earnest search were immensely valuable for 
the purpose of getting a great truth, long firmly 
held in a clear head, deeply imbedded in a hot 
heart. When, at the age of thirty-six, he felt his 
" heart strangely warmed," Methodism was born, 
and the way to heaven became plainer to all suc- 
ceeding generations. His subsequent experience 
and teaching concerning " perfect love " brought in 
a new era for yearning, struggling, doubting disci- 
ples ; and the twin evangels of salvation now, and 
of salvation from all sin, sounded out more clearly 
than ever before, not only through all the branches 
of the Church he founded, but throughout all evan- 
gelical Christendom. 

The great convincing proof of Christ's messiahship 
must always be in substance the same. He himself 
states it thus : u Go and show John again those 
things which ye do hear and see ; the blind receive 
their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are 



INTRODUCTION. 1 3 

cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, 
and the poor have the gospel preached to them." 
After this he said, " He that believeth on me, the 
works that I do shall he do also ; and greater works 
than these shall he do." Those " greater works " 
can be none other than the spiritual miracles of rais- 
ing and transforming dead souls ; and such miracles 
God has wrought by his modern apostles as truly as 
he healed the sick and raised the dead by the original 
twelve. Transformed lives, " new creatures," tri- 
umphant experiences, Saul-Pauls — these must in 
every age be the incontestable evidences of Chris- 
tianity. Against such demonstration no form of 
skepticism, whether dug out of the rubbish of the 
past, or (if that be possible) born of some new de- 
velopment of Satanic genius, can possibly make 
permanent headway. 

Lyman Beecher once said — I am sure of the 
thought and almost of the exact words — " A heart 
on fire with the love of God is the greatest created 
power in the universe." But in order to such 
power the heart must not only feel that love, but be 
hot with it. Millions of church members on the 
dead level of dry orthodoxy and decent ceremonial 
observances and worldly living have less power 
than one man with a great idea burning in the core 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

of his heart— a Daniel, a Paul, a Luther, or a Jud- 
son. 

"Ye are my witnesses," saith the Lord. The 
Church, which is Christ's body, has a testimony to 
offer concerning its Head and also concerning the 
life which continually flows from the head into all 
the members. 

This book is a summary of such testimony from 
the lives of " Forty Witnesses," witnesses repre- 
senting courses of life and ecclesiastical stand-points 
exceedingly diverse ; some having " a genius for 
godliness," and others furnishing material about as 
intractable as grace has ever conquered and trans- 
formed. It is highly instructive, then, to behold 
them all gathering round the world's Redeemer 
and with united voices proclaiming him " mighty to 
save," to " save to the uttermost," and " able to 
succor them that are tempted." 

The freshness, frankness, individuality, variety, 
and generally undogmatic character of these experi- 
ences will, I am sure, make them practically help- 
ful to many a dissatisfied and longing believer, and 
will, I think, have also a certain philosophic value, 
not, indeed, in settling the vexed questions relating 
to the theological definition of " the higher life," 
but in strongly emphasizing the truth that such 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

questions are altogether secondary to the possession 
of that life itself; and that 

" The love of God is broader 
Than the measure of man's mind." 

Go forth, ye <l Forty Witnesses." Pursue your 
shining way until it leads into the streets of gold. 
And God grant that your Beulah songs may quicken 
the steps of many a footsore pilgrim and help to 
augment the number of that triumphant multitude 
who shall stand before the throne of God, having 
41 washed their robes and made them white in the 
blood of the Lamb." 

CYRUS D. FOSS. 

June 14, 1888. 



CONTENTS. 



PART F^IRST. 

Denomination. Page. 

Dougan Clark, M.D Friend. 19 

Professor of Latin and Greek, Earlham College. 

David B. Updegraff, Minister Friend. 25 

Fannie J. Sparkes Methodist. 31 

Daniel Steele, D.D " 39 

Professor in Boston University. 

Rev. E. M. Levy, D.D Baptist. 47 

Jennie F. Willing Methodist. 66 

Mrs. M. Baxter Church of England. 72 

Rev. William Reddy, D.D .Methodist. 76 

Rev. James Mudge, B.D " 84 

Frances E. Willard 4I 90 

Rev. G. D. Watson, D.D " 100 

Rev. B. F. Crary, D.D " 107 

Luke Woodard, Minister Friend. 112 

Rev. John Parker Methodist. ti6 

Capt. R. Kelso Carter " 121 

Mary R. Denman Episcopalian. 130 

Anna M. Hammer. " 135 

Rev. B. K. Peirce, D.D Methodist. 140 

Hannah WhitAll Smith Friend. 144 

2 



1 8 CONTENTS. 

Denomination. Page. 
A. II. Hussey, Minister Friend. 15S 

Rev. L. B. Bates, D. D Methodist. 162 

Osee M. Fitzgerald " 165 

Rev. George Hughes " 176 

Sarah A. Lankford Palmer " 1S3 

Rev. Henry P. Hall " 192 

Rev. William Jones, M.D " 197 

Mary Sparkes Wheeler " 203 

Lucretia A. Cullis Episcopalian. 215 

Charles Cullis, M.D M 220 

PART SECOND. 

Professor Asa Mam an, LL.D Congregationalist. 223 

Frances Ridley IIavergal Church of England. 237 

Mary D. James Methodist. 245 

Rev. William Butler, D.D " 250 

Ethel Perkins " 260 

Bishop C. D. Foss, LL.D " 263 

Dwight L. Moody Congregationalist. 26S 

Professor T. C. Upham, D.D M 271 

Rev. Alfred Cookman Methodist. 2S3 

Rev. J. O. Peck, D.D M 293 

Phozbe Palmer " 299 



FORTY WITNESSES, 



PART FIRST, 



I. 

DOUGAN CLARK, M.D. 

(FRIEND.) 

T WAS born in Randolph County, North Carolina, 
<k> on the 17th of 5th month (May), 1828. I was 
educated at Haverford College, Pennsylvania, at 
which institution I graduated in 1852. I took the 
degree of Doctor of Medicine at the University of 
Pennsylvania in 1861, and practiced my profession 
for about fifteen years. Since 1866 my residence 
has been at Richmond, Indiana. 

My parents were both ministers in the Society 
of Friends. I had accordingly a birthright mem- 
bership in that Church. I was carefully and tenderly 
brought up, and taught that I must fear the Lord 
and keep his commandments. The Scriptures were 
daily read in our family, and I soon learned to read 
and enjoy them for myself. The parental discipline 
which I received was strict, but kind and loving. I 
was to a great extent shielded from the temptations 



20 FORTY WITNESSES. 

to gross sins to which many young people are 
exposed. I was from my very infancy a regular at- 
tender upon public worship, and in my earliest 
years I enjoyed hearing good preaching. 

The chief things inculcated in the teaching and 
preaching of those days— I mean half a century ago, 
so far as the Friend's Church was concerned — were 
to mind and obey the light of God's Holy Spirit 
shining into the heart ; to be moral and upright and 
honest and truthful and good ; to do what duty 
required, and to obey God; and thus to work out 
salvation with fear and trembling. 

It is true that Christ crucified was often spoken 
of as the sinner's hope of acceptance with God ; but 
the fact that the Spirit always testifies of Christ and 
draws men to him was too much lost sight of, and 
the necessity of an immediate and definite conver- 
sion was not clearly insisted upon. 

I cannot point to the time when converting grace 
first reached my soul. I am quite sure that it was 
in very early life. I am certain that there were occa- 
sions every now and then, during my boyhood and 
youth and early manhood, when my soul was filled 
with the love of God ; when I was contrite before 
him ; when ljiy peace flowed as a river, and when I 
enjoyed what I now believe to have been the 
witness of the Spirit to my adoption and sonship. 

A man can be alive even if he does not know 
when his birthday was, and so we may have the un- 



DOUGAN CLARK, M.D. 21 

mistakable signs of spiritual life without, in all cases, 
being able to point to the moment or the day when 
such life began. It is not so important to know the 
time as the fact of our conversion. But notwith- 
standing these things are so, yet I want to add 
right here that I do consider a definite, con- 
scious conversion — to which the individual can point 
in all his subsequent life as the day of his birth into 
God's kingdom — to be an inestimable blessing and 
a glorious privilege. And where people are rightly 
instructed such conversions will be the rule, and 
any other kind the rare exception. 

Until I had reached middle life my Christian ex- 
perience was very unsteady and unsatisfactory. God 
was wonderfully good to me ; but the carnal mind 
was very strong and ever struggling against the 
movings of the Spirit. So I was up and down, one 
day on the house-top, the next in the cellar ; sinning 
and repenting, backsliding and returning; at times 
growing in grace and at times almost losing my 
faith and my hope. I was a Christian, but not a 
healthy one. Still, upon the whole, I can say, to the 
glory of Jesus my Saviour, that during those years, 
by his grace, I did make considerable progress in 
the divine life. The old man— the strong man— was 
mostly kept in bonds. The struggle was often 
severe and protracted ; but when I trusted in Jesus 
he gave me the victory. 

When I was about thirty years of age my atten- 



22 FORTY WITNESSES. 

tion was first called, distinctively and intelligibly, to 
the subject of holiness as an actual, obtainable ex- 
perience. This was from a perusal of the Interior 
Life, by the Late Professor Upham. 

But it required many years for me to grasp the 
subject experimentally and practically. I made 
consecrations again and again — written and verbal 
— but somehow they did not stand the test. I 
struggled and prayed, and often got the victory; 
but I was not delivered. 

When nearly forty years of age I began to speak, 
not infrequently, in Friends' meetings as a minister. 
I only felt just call enough to justify me in opening 
my mouth ; and, without deciding whether the 
Lord really intended to make a minister of me or 
not, I thought it safest to attend to present openings 
and opportunities to speak for Him as they occurred. 
It was comparatively only a short time before my 
monthly meeting gave its official sanction to my 
ministry by " recording " me as a minister of the 
Gospel. And still I was interested in the subject 
of holiness, and still I was desiring it, and still I was 
not enjoying it. 

At length, in the 12th month (December), 1871, 
while attending a series of meetings at a Friends' 
church in Ohio, in which Brother David B. Upde- 
graff was taking part, and acting under his advice, I 
arose in a large assembly and stated my sense of my 
own unworthiness and weakness ; but that relying 



DOUGAN CLARK, M.D. 23 

wholly upon Christ I did there and then reckon 
myself dead indeed unto him and alive unto God 
through Jesus Christ my Lord. 

I had now committed myself publicly. While I 
knew that I could not make myself dead to sin I 
felt as if the responsibility was now laid upon Jesus. 
What I reckoned in faith he could make real and 
true. There was no very marked feeling for several 
hours. I held on by faith to my confession. Then 
came peace — full, quiet, calm ; not rapture, nor 
ecstasy, but " All the silent heaven of love ; " and 
this continued almost without intermission during 
my waking hours for several weeks. 

Now, what did I get ? 

Answer: 1. A clean heart; I was baptized with 
the Holy Ghost, and my heart was purified by faith. 

2. Perfect love. 

3. The endowment of power ; for whatever spirit- 
ual power I have been possessed of since, either for 
winning sinners to Christ or bringing believers to 
entire sanctification by consecration and faith in 
Jesus, I date it from that blessed day and hour. 

How has it been with me since ? 

There have been failures on my part, but God has 
kept me wonderfully. There have been great 
and exceedingly subtle temptations — angel-of-light 
temptations — but Jesus has carried me through. 
There have been great trials and fearful sorrows, 
greater, I believe, than the average Christian, or 



24 FORTY WITNESSES. 

even the average holiness man, is called upon to en- 
dure ; but Jesus sustains and keeps and consoles. 
There has been a good deal of blessed service for 
him, both in preaching and writing, and a good 
many souls testify to having been blessed and 
brought into the light and experience of holiness 
through my instrumentality — with pen or tongue. 
I wish the number was manifold greater, as it might 
have been if I had been wholly the Lord's from my 
youth ; but I can rejoice now when others preach 
and write better than I, and are the means of gath- 
ering in hundreds where I bring units. 

And on this 19th of February, 1887, I do still 
testify that by the grace of God I am reckoning my- 
self dead to sin; and I have a sure confidence that 
now the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth me from all 
sin, and that I have received, and now have, the gift 
of the Holy Ghost. Praise the Lord ! 

D. CLARK. 

Richmond, Ind., Second Month, Nineteenth Day, 1887. 



DAVID B. UPDEGRAFF. 25 



II. 

DAVID B. UPDEGRAFF. 

(FRIEND.) 

T WAS born near Mount Pleasant, Ohio, on the 23d 
<i of August, 1830. I cannot doubt that I was sol- 
emnly given to God from my birth by pious parents. 
My infant lips were taught to pray, and when I said, 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep," 

I really expected him to do it. My young heart 
was not a stranger to the gracious visitations of the 
Spirit of God, and was often melted by the power 
of his love. But as I grew up I grew in sinfulness 
and in rebellion against God. Though mercifully pre- 
served from many sins of a gross and disgraceful 
character, I was often in great distress of soul 
because of those I did commit. At such times I 
would earnestly repent in secret and cry unto God 
for mercy. Many covenants were thus made and 
often, though not always, broken. The covenants, 
prayers, restraints and instructions of faithful 
parents were not lost upon me. After being settled 
in life I renewed my covenants with God, and sought 
to do right because it was right. I was a birthright- 
member of the Church and was " zealous toward 



26 FORTY WITNESSES. 

God according to the perfect manner of the law of 
my fathers." I certainly did " fear the Lord," and 
was a "servant" under the law that " gendereth to 
bondage " for many years. But I had not " received 
the adoption of a son" In March, 1864, I made 
this full discovery. The Gospel of God came to me 
with great power. I met the test of public confes- 
sion of sins and my need of the Saviour. It was a 
hard struggle, for I was proud and stubborn ; but I 
was determined to yield myself to God, and did it. 
My spiritual conflict was somewhat protracted, but 
it came to an end in the silent watches of the 
night, and I had " peace with God." His Spirit 
witnessed with my spirit that I was his child. I 
was at once a glad and willing witness to the reality 
of justification by faith and the birth of the Spirit. 
I loved to tell of the power of Jesus to save and of 
the gladness he had put into my heart. But, first 
neglect, then disobedience, then waywardness inter- 
fered with my Christian life. Chastening and suf- 
fering from the hand of the Lord was followed by 
restoration of soul. Then a more conscious and 
definite consecration of my service to the blessed 
Saviour. I had longed to see God glorified in the 
salvation of souls and the enlargement of the 
Church. Some years had passed since I had found 
the liberty of the sons of God ; but I saw that few 
were being brought into the kingdom. To be sure, 
I was only a business man, and utterly averse to 



DAVID B. UPDEGRAFF. 27 

the idea of being a minister. I greatly desired to 
serve both God and men, but in a quiet and unob- 
trusive way. The Church was laying a little work 
upon me, from which I shrank with a deep sense of 
unfitness. I felt it far more than I could under- 
stand it. But as the Lord opened the door I 
stepped in, and soon began to learn what real loy- 
alty to God was to cost, and that if led by the 
Spirit of God, and according to his word, re- 
proaches and other like blessings, promised by the 
Saviour, would become a reality. I had always 
regarded these rather as a consequence of blunders 
made by people who could not manage to keep 
out of them. There were a good many people who 
gave me trouble ; but as I learned more of myself I 
discovered one " old man " who gave me more 
trouble than all the others, and he was a member 
of my " own household/' " His deeds " had been 
put off, and truly there was " no condemnation/' 
yet when " I would do good " he was present with 
me. And he was there to " war against the law of 
my mind," with a resolute purpose to " bring me 
into captivity to the law of sin." If he succeeded 
even partially I was humbled and grieved, and if 
he did not I was in distress with fear lest he might. 
The Lord taught me by some special providences, 
and I began to understand more clearly how that 
" the law was weak through the flesh." I hated 
pride, ambition, evil tempers and vain thoughts ; 



28 FORTY WITNESSES. 

but I had them for all of that, and they were a part 
of me. Not as acts to be repented of and forgiven, 
but dispositions lying behind the acts, and prompt- 
ings thereto, natural to the old man and insepara- 
ble from his presence in my being. I began to ask 
God, with a measure of faith, to " cast him out." 
Along with this desire there came a great " hunger 
and thirst " to be " filled with all the fullness of 
God." I longed for a " clean heart and a constant 
spirit." In such an attitude of soul I attended a 
social meeting for conference and prayer on a mem- 
orable evening early in September, 1869. As I 
went upon my knees it was with the resolute pur- 
pose of " presenting my body a living sacrifice to 
God." Such were my relations with him that I 
saw a new light and a new privilege in entire conse- 
cration, and set about it with great delight. But I 
speedily found myself in the midst of a severe con- 
flict. There passed quickly before me the obstacles 
in the way, and the " things to be suffered for Jesus' 
sake." The misapprehensions, suspicions, and 
revilings of carnal professors, as well as the conflicts 
with the world, the flesh, and the devil. And they 
were not the exaggerations of fancy, either; selfish- 
ness, pride and prejudice joined forces and rose in 
rebellion, while the " old man " pleaded for his life. 
But I could not, would not draw back. " Vile affec- 
tions " were resolutely nailed to the cross, and 
those things that " were gain to me " — denomina- 



DAVID B. UPDEGRAFF. 29 

tional standing, family, business, friends, posses- 
sions, time, talent and reputation — were irrevocably 
committed to the sovereign control and disposal of 
my Almighty Saviour. With my all upon the altar 
I had no sooner reckoned myself " dead indeed 
unto sin and alive unto God " than the " Holy 
Ghost fell " upon me. Instantly I felt the 
melting and refining fire of God permeating my 
whole being. I had entered into rest, I was 
nothing and nobody, and glad that it was forever 
settled that way. It was a conscious luxury to get 
rid of ambitions and self-will, and have my heart 
cry out for nothing but the will of God. I was 
deeply conscious of his presence and of his sanctify- 
ing work. It was not an effort to realize that I 
loved the Lord with all my heart and mind and 
strength, and my neighbor as myself. The inmost 
calm and repose in God, of that time, that day, 
that hour, was a wonder to me then, and it continues 
to be so still. It was, and it is, the u peace of God 
that passeth understanding." The witness of the 
Spirit to entire sanctification was as clear and 
unmistakable to my own soul as it was in the 
experience of justification. I have had abundant 
time and occasion in the nearly nineteen years that 
have passed, to scrutinize and test the reality and 
nature of the work wrought then, and perpetuated 
since by the power of the Holy Ghost. In and of 
myself I am neither holier nor stronger than before. 



30 FORTY WITNESSES. 

But I have learned that this wondrous baptism 
with the Holy Ghost is the secret of stability in the 
Christian character as well as success. True, it is 
not a state that is necessarily immutable, but rather 
a mode of life which may and ought to be main- 
tained by a perpetual faith in Jesus and his prom- 
ises. His constant abiding perpetuates a disposi- 
tion to do the will of God. And our obedience in 
allowing him to u work in us to will and to do of 
his own good pleasure " constrains him to abide. I 
have proven the secret of victory in this life to be 
quietness, assurance, and obedience, loving God 
supremely. It must be a supreme dread lest we 
offend him. And if grieving the Spirit of God 
is regarded as the greatest evil that could befall us, 
the fear of man will not ensnare our feet, and our 
eyes will keep single and the whole body full of 
light. Let Satan stretch the last link in his chain — 
it is still too short ; he cannot reach us. For the 
" mighty to save " is both able and willing to keep 
his own from the commission of sin, as well as to 
atone for and pardon sins already committed. Bless 
his holy name. " He that overcometh, the same 
shall be clothed in white raiment." "And they over- 
came him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of 
their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto 

the death." Amen. 

DAVID B. UPDEGRAFF. 

Mt. Pleasant, O., Third Month, Fifth Day, 1888. 



FANNIE J. SPARKES. 3 1 



III. 

FANNIE J. SPARKES. 

(METHODIST,) 

T WAS blessed with Christian parents and the 
J) advantages of religious training. At the age 
of thirteen, during a revival in the Methodist 
Episcopal Church of Binghamton, N. Y., under 
the pastorate of Rev. A. P. Mead, I became deeply 
convicted of sin and sought the Lord earnestly and 
sincerely. I had an erroneous idea of the witness 
of the Spirit, and was expecting some wonderful 
change to be instantaneously wrought in my heart. 
The sense of condemnation gradually gave place to 
peace and sometimes joy ; yet I could not say I 
had the witness of the Spirit to my conversion. 

On the advice of my parents and pastor, though 
with many misgivings, I then united with the 
church. During ten years that followed I was 
counted a consistent member, and was active in 
church and Sunday-school work. I loved God's 
written word, loved secret prayer, and occasionally 
had remarkable answers to prayer. Much of the 
time, I know now, I enjoyed communion with God ; 
yet I was constantly anxious, and troubled with 
doubts of my acceptance, because I could not tell 
the exact time of my conversion. 



32 FORTY WITNESSES. 

In August, 1869, after a severe struggle, I re- 
solved to seek no longer for the witness of the 
Spirit, but to trust Jesus as my Saviour through 
life, without light or joy, should he so will it, and 
appear before him, at the last, pleading only his 
word of promise. 

I was led to see that I had made a mistake in 
looking for great blessings instead of thankfully ac- 
cepting and acknowledging those given. A few days 
later " he that believeth hath the witness in him- 
self " came home to me with great power, and from 
that time I have never doubted my acceptance of 
the Father, through his Son, nor had a single mis- 
giving in regard to the witness of the Spirit. The 
struggle of years was ended ; I rested joyfully in 
Christ and was loyally obedient to him. 

I had often earnestly desired the blessing of per- 
fect love and had sought it for a time, but relin- 
quished the search through fear that I was not yet 
regenerated. Some of my friends thought I had 
now received this blessing, but the Spirit witnessed 
clearly to my heart that this was the " washing of 
regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost " in 
the " spirit of adoption." 

The following spring I was called by the Woman's 
Foreign Missionary Society of our Church to the 
work of a missionary in India, and God, by his Spirit, 
so wrought in my heart that I knew — with all the 
certainty I then knew I was his child — that it was 



FANNIE J. SPARKES. 33 

his call, and I dared not refuse to follow. I sailed 
for India September 22, 1870. 

New experiences, new duties, and peculiar trials 
brought a new sense of need, and 1871 and 1872 
were years of constant reaching out after God. It 
was my privilege to be associated in 1872 with Rev. 
and Mrs. C. W. Judd, who encouraged me to seek 
for perfect love, and greatly helped me in it. As 
new light was given I saw that my will was not, as 
I had supposed it to be, in perfect harmony with 
God's will. I resolved that my consecration should 
be complete, cost what it might. The Holy Spirit 
wonderfully helped me in heart-searchings as I 
prayed for light, until every thing was, I knew, 
laid' upon the altar, and I could say, " I am pros- 
trate in the dust ; I with Christ am crucified/' At 
last, after weary months of seeking, and feeling that 
I could not take by faith so great a blessing, I 
knelt by my bedside one evening in December with 
the determination not to leave the room until vic- 
tory should be mine. While pleading, the Spirit 
whispered, " You have given yourself with all your 
soul and body's powers unreservedly to God. Why 
not trust him now to keep that you have committed 
unto him?" I laid hold of the word, " He is able 
to keep," etc. I said, " I do trust myself into thy 
keeping, and will, by an act of faith, hold myself 
steadily there until thou shalt set the Spirit's seal." 

Morning was about dawning. Throughout that 
3 



34 FORTY WITNESSES. 

day, while engaged in its duties, I kept claiming and 
realizing from moment to moment perfect keep- 
ing power. At our consecration meeting that even- 
ing, led by Dr. Scott, although I greatly shrank 
from so doing, I felt that I must honor God with 
my testimony. I stated as nearly as possible just 
my position, and as I ceased speaking my heart was 
filled with a sense of God's wonderful love and 
power, and with the assurance that he saved me to 
the uttermost. 

During the days that followed I seemed to be 
living in an atmosphere of heaven. I was lifted 
out of and above myself and surroundings, and real- 
ized that I was wholly saved and sweetly kept, en- 
folded in the everlasting arms. The desire for the 
salvation of souls was all-absorbing, so that, im- 
pelled by a power within, and yet not of me, I 
labored incessantly, allowing myself hardly time to 
eat or sleep, but O, what joy I experienced in labor, 
what help and what blessing ! 

After about three weeks of this unvarying experi- 
ence, I awoke one morning with the consciousness 
that the Spirit's help was withdrawn. I was as one 
who had been standing on the top of a high mount- 
ain reaching unto heaven, drinking in fresh beauty 
and glory at every breath, suddenly let down into 
a low, shut-in valley, without any knowledge of how, 
when, or why he came there. I knew the witness 
of the Spirit to full salvation had been clear when I 



FANNIE J. SPARKES. 35 

closed my eyes in sleep. I knew I had not grieved 
the Spirit. The suggestion came, " You testified too 
soon and never received the blessing you sought/' I 
refuted the suggestion as best I could, but began 
the day's duties with a heavy heart. I was exam- 
ining classes in the orphanage, and from six to ten 
found it very wearying. Soon after I involuntarily 
spoke impatiently to a girl who was very trying. 
It was so slight as to be scarcely noticed by the 
class, but in a moment I was so overwhelmed with a 
sense of humiliation and sorrow that I felt obliged 
to retire to my room, where I humbled myself be- 
fore the Lord and claimed forgiveness for the sin. I 
had read a statement said to have been taken from 
John Wesley's journal, that, notwithstanding his 
very arduous labors, he never knew what it was to 
feel in the least wearied, and thought this the priv- 
ilege of all Christians fully saved. I thought, if this 
be true, there is so much needing to be done in 
India I need never feel weary while toiling here. 
My friends had told me I was going beyond my 
strength ; but I thought not. Now I realized that in 
addition to the Spirit's withdrawal I was physically 
prostrated. Satan whispered, " You see you were 
mistaken in regard to that ; the whole thing has 
been a mistake." Afterward, though not then, I 
saw that God permitted this experience not only to 
teach me to live by faith, but also what I was 
always apt to forget, that " we have this treasure in 



36 FORTY WITNESSES. 

earthen vessels." While I did not then really let 
go my hold on God I was bewildered and stag- 
gered, and, in a measure, shorn of my strength. 

I think I enjoyed the blessing for two years or 
more after this, but did not walk in the clear light 
as I might have done had I not, through fear, be- 
come cautious about confessing Christ as my 
Saviour to the uttermost. Here was my fatal mis- 
take, and I am not surprised that my light became 
dim until it gradually died out. As soon as I real- 
ized that the Comforter was gone I began again 
seeking his presence, but found it much harder to 
regain a lost experience than to attain to it at first. 
For one year and a half following I realized much 
of the time great help and comfort in the work, and 
was used in the salvation of souls; but I longed for 
full salvation and for greater power in the work. 
I was so bowed down with a realization of my own 
need, my lack of power, and the responsibility of 
the souls intrusted to my care, that I often spent 
nearly the whole night praying for their salvation, 
and, literally bowing my face to the ground, would 
exclaim, as did Moses, " Lord, I cannot bear this 
people alone, because they are too much for me." 

In September, 1876, 1 was holding daily meetings 
in the girls' orphanage, of which I had charge, and 
for two weeks no one started to seek the Lord. I 
closed the meetings and went to Lucknow to a 
camp-meeting then in progress. 



FANNIE J. SPARKES. 37 

At one of the afternoon meetings, where many- 
were seeking entire consecration, I stated my ear- 
nest desire for a baptism of power, and asked if it 
might be definitely sought and found. Brother 
Dennis Osborn, who was leading the meeting, en- 
couraged me to seek it expectantly now. I recon- 
secrated myself to God, reckoned myself wholly his, 
and waited for the baptism. 

The next morning, while reading Isa. 32, new 
light shone upon the word from the 15th to the 
20th verses, and especially upon the 17th: " And 
the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the 
effect of righteousness quietness and assurance 
forever." 

I knew the work of grace wrought in my heart 
through taking Christ as my righteousness had 
brought peace, and the effect of the finished work, 
the abiding Christ, was, I saw, the quietness of rest- 
ing down low at the feet of Jesus, listening, ready 
to obey his voice and the assurance that he would 
himself do the work, only through me. The words 
given me to speak should be his words, with his 
power accompanying them. In an instant, I know 
not how, my soul anchored to the words, and the 
baptism came — the assurance that Christ, in me and 
through me, was to be to me a power not before 
known. I was to go forth strong in the Lord and 
in the power of his might. 

I returned to my work in Bareilly, again com- 



38 FORTY WITNESSES. 

menced meetings in the orphanage, and in two 
weeks* time more than fifty of our dear girls were 
clearly converted. 

Two months later I was obliged to return to 
America on sick leave, but I had never before seen 
such results in the work as during these two 
months. Instead of so much struggling and doing 
I could almost " stand still and see the salvation of 
God.'' The full assurance of faith was mine. My 
words, though fewer, more simple and more direct, 
were, I knew, God-given and could not be fruitless. 
I had learned, at least in a measure, what oneness 
with Christ meant, and realized such nearness to 
him that when I knelt in secret prayer I was in the 
conscious immediate presence of Christ, and knew 
my prayer was answered almost before I could call. 

The most of the time since then the witness of 
perfect love has been clear. My experiences have 
been varied and new tests have been frequently 
given. The full assurance of faith and the fullness 
of the Spirit have not always been mine, but I have 
realized access to God by faith and power in work- 
ing for Christ, which could not have been mine 

without this rest of faith. 

F. J. SPARKES. 

Binghamton, N. Y March 6, 1888. 



DANIEL STEELE. 39 



IV. 

REV. DANIEL STEELE, D.D. 

(METHODIST.) 

T WAS born into this world in Windham, N. Y., 
<i October 5, 1824; into the kingdom of God in 
Wilbraham, Mass., in the spring of 1842. I could 
never write the day of my spiritual birth, so grad- 
ually did the light dawn upon me and so lightly 
was the seal of my justification impressed upon my 
consciousness. This was a source of great trial and 
seasons of doubt in the first years of my Christian 
life. I coveted a conversion of the Pauline type. 
My call to the ministry was more marked and un- 
doubted than my justification. Through a mothers 
prayers and consecration of her unborn child to the 
ministry of the word I may say, "To this end was 
I born, and for this cause came I into the world, 
that I should bear witness to the truth." My early 
religious experience was variable, and for the most 
part consisted in 

" Sorrows and sins, and doubts and fears, 
A howling wilderness." 

The personality of the Holy Spirit was rather an 
article of faith than a joyful realization. He had 
breathed into me life, but not the more abundant 



4-0 FORTY WITNESSES. 

life. In a sense I was free, but not " free indeed ; M 
free from the guilt and dominion of sin, but not 
from strong inward tendencies thereto, which seemed 
to be a part of my nature. In my early ministry, 
being hereditarily a Methodist in doctrine, I be- 
lieved in the possibility of entire sanctification in 
this life, instantaneously wrought. Plow could I 
doubt it in the light of my mother's exemplification 
of its reality? I sought quite earnestly, at times, 
but failed to find any thing more than transient up- 
lifts from the dead level. One of these, in 1852, 
was so marked that it delivered me from doubt on 
the question of regeneration. These uplifts all 
came while earnestly struggling after entire sanctifi- 
cation as a distinct blessing. But when I embraced 
the theory that this work is gradual, and not instan- 
taneous, these blessed uplifts ceased. For, seeing 
no definite line to be crossed, my faith ceased to 
put forth its strongest energies. In this condition, 
a period of fifteen years, I became exceedingly dis- 
satisfied and hungry. God had something better 
for me. He saw that so great was my mental be- 
wilderment, through the conflict of opinion in my 
own denomination relative to Christian perfection, 
that I would flounder on, "in endless mazes lost," 
and never enter 

" The land of corn and wine and oil," 

unless he, in mercy, should lead me by another 



REV. DANIEL STEELE, D.D. 41 

road than that which has the finger-board set up 
by John Wesley. I was led by the study of the 
promised Paraclete to see that he signified far more 
than I had realized in the new birth, and that a 
personal Pentecost was awaiting me. I sought in 
downright earnestness. Then the Spirit uncovered 
to my gaze the evil still lurking in my nature ; the 
mixed motives with which I had preached, often 
preferring the honor which comes from men to that 
which comes from God. 

I submitted to every test presented by the Holy 
Spirit and publicly confessed what he had revealed, 
and determined to walk alone with God rather than 
with the multitude in the world or in the Church. 
I immediately began to feel a strange freedom, 
daily increasing, the cause of which I did not dis- 
tinctly apprehend. I was then led to seek the con- 
scious and joyful presence of the Comforter in my 
heart. Having settled the question that this was 
not merely an apostolic blessing, but for all ages — 
"He shall abide with you forever" — I took the 
promise, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever 
ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it 
you." The " verily " had to me all the strength of 
an oath. Out of the " whatsoever " I took all tem- 
poral blessings, not because I did not believe them 
to be included, but because I was not then seeking 
them. I then wrote my own name in the promise, 
not to exclude others, but to be sure that I in- 



42 FORTY WITNESSES. 

eluded myself. Then, writing underneath these 
words, " To-day is the day of salvation/' I found 
that my faith had three points to master — the Com- 
forter, for me, now. Upon the promise I ventured 
with an act of appropriating faith, claiming the 
Comforter as my right in the name of Jesus. For 
several hours I clung by naked faith, praying and 
repeating Charles Wesley's hymn — 

"Jesus, thine all-victorious love 
Shed in my heart abroad." 

I then ran over in my mind the great facts in 
Christ's life, especially dwelling upon Gethsemane 
and Calvary, his ascension, priesthood, and all- 
atoning sacrifice. Suddenly I became conscious of 
a mysterious power exerting itself upon my sensi- 
bilities. My physical sensations, though not of a 
nervous temperament, in good health, alone, and 
calm, w r ere indescribable, as if an electric current 
were passing through my body with painless shocks, 
melting my whole being into a fiery stream of love. 
The Son of God stood before my spiritual eye in 
all his loveliness. This was November 17, 1870, the 
day most memorable to me. I now for the first 
time realized " the unsearchable riches of Christ." 
Reputation, friends, family, property, every thing 
disappeared, eclipsed by the brightness of his mani- 
festation. He seemed to say %i I have come to 
stay." Yet there was no uttered word, no phan- 
tasm or image. It was not a trance or vision. The 



REV. DANIEL STEELE, D.D. 43 

affections were the sphere of this wonderful phe- 
nomenon, best described as " the love of God shed 
abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost. " It seemed 
as if the attraction of Jesus, the loadstone of my 
soul, was so strong that it would draw the spirit out 
of the body upward into heaven. How vivid and 
real was all this to me! I was more certain that 
God loved me than I was of the existence of the 
solid earth and of the shining sun. I intuitively 
apprehended Christ. This certainty has lost none 
of its strength and sweetness after the lapse of 
more than seventeen years. Yea, it has become more 
real and blissful. Nor is this unphilosophical, for 
Dr. McCosh teaches that the intuitions are capable 
of growth. 

I did not at first realize that this was entire sanc- 
tification. The positive part of my experience had 
eclipsed the negative, the elimination of the sin- 
principle by the cleansing power of the Paraclete. 
But it was verily so. Yet it has always seemed to 
me that this was the inferior part of the great 
blessing of the incoming and abiding of the whole 
Trinity. John 14. 23. ' 

After seventeen years of life's varied experi- 
ences, on seas sometimes very tempestuous, in 
sickness and in health, at home and abroad, in 
honor and dishonor, in tests of exceeding severity, 
there has come up out of the depths of neither my 
conscious nor unconscious being any thing bearing 



44 FORTY WITNESSES. 

the ugly features of sin, the willful transgression of 
the known law of God. All this time Satan's fiery 
darts have been thickly flying, but they have fallen 
harmless upon the invisible shield of faith in Jesus 
Christ. As to the future, " I am persuaded that He 
is able to keep my deposit until that day." In 
regard to the process of becoming established in 
holiness, I find this to be God's open secret — " to 
walk by the same rule and to mind the same 
thing." Phil. 3. 16. The rule is, faith in Christ ever 
increasing in strength ; the heart being fertilized 
with the elements of faith, a knowledge of the Holy 
Scriptures, the conscience being trained to avoid 
not merely sinful and doubtful acts, but also those 
whose moral quality is beyond the reach of all eth- 
ical rules, and known to be evil only by their 
effect in dimming the manifestation of Christ within. 
The rule of life, I find, must be sufficiently delicate 
to exclude those acts which bring the least blur 
over the spiritual eye. Heb. 5. 14. If any act brings 
a veil of the thinnest gauze between me and the 
face of Christ I henceforth and forever give it a 
tremendous letting alone. 

As another indispensable to establishment in that 
perfect love which casts out all fear I have found 
the disposition to confess Christ in his uttermost 
salvation. As no man could long keep in his house 
sensitive guests of .whom he was ashamed before his 
neighbors, so no man can long have the company of 



REV. DANIEL STEELE, D.D. 45 

the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the temple of 
his heart while ashamed of their presence or their 
purifying work. 

In this respect I follow no man's formula. The 
words which the spirit of inspiration teaches in the 
Holy Scriptures, though beclouded with misunder- 
standings and beslimed with fanaticisms, are, after 
all, the most appropriate vehicle for the expression 
of the wonderful work of God in perfecting holiness 
in the human spirit, soul and body. 

I testify that it is possible for believers to be so 
filled with the Holy Ghost that they can live many 
years on the earth conscious every day of a meet- 
ness for the inheritance of the saints in light, and of 
no shrinking back, because of a felt need of further 
inward cleansing, from an instant translation into 
the society of the holy angels and into the presence 
of the holy God. This was my daily experience 
since 1870. I have the Johannean evidence that my 
love is pure and unmixed — that is, perfected — in the 
fact that I have boldness in view of the day of judg- 
ment. (1 John 4. 17, 18, Dean Alford's Notes.) This 
joyful boldness is grounded on the assurance of a 
conformity to the image of the Son of God, and 
that I am, through the transfiguring power of the 
Spirit, like him in purity, and that the Judge will 
not condemn fac similes of himself, " because, even 
as he is, so are we in this world. ,, 

Yet I am conscious of errors, ignorances, infirmi- 



46 FORTY WITNESSES. 

ties and defects, which, though consistent with per- 
fect loyalty and love to God, need, and by faith 
receive, every moment, the merit of Christ's death. 
In other words, the ground of my standing before 
God is neither perfect rectitude in the past nor a 
faultless present service, but the divine mercy as 
administered through Jesus Christ. Hence I daily 

pray, " Forgive us our debts." 

DANIEL STEELE. 
Boston, March, 1888. 



REV. EDGAR M. LEVY, D.D. 47 



V. 

REV. EDGAR M. LEVY, D.D. 

(BAPTIST.) 

TT pleased God in my earliest childhood to call 
£> me by his Holy Spirit. As far back as memory 
will allow me to go I can recall seasons of great 
distress on account of sin. When other children 
around me were busy at play I would often invent 
some excuse to withdraw, that I might find a place 
where I could weep before God in secret. 

The weary burden grew heavier with my increas- 
ing years. As fast as my mental powers were de- 
veloped so as to understand, in a measure, the law 
of God, my condemnation and ruin became more 
alarmingly real. I cannot look back to this period 
of life as men usually do. They were not to me 
days of mirth, but days in which even childhood's 
laughter was turned into weeping and its buoyancy 
into heaviness. 

My parents, who were intelligent, cheerful, and 
exemplary Christians, were connected with the 
Chambers Presbyterian Church, and resided, at 
this time, remote from the sanctuary of their choice 
and opposite a Methodist church. Here I would 
occasionally attend, and listen to the sainted Pitman 



48 FORTY WITNESSES. 

and other faithful men of God. It was at this time, 
when only thirteen years of age, that the burden of 
sin was removed, and I had peace with God through 
our Lord Jesus Christ. I can remember the very 
place, time, and circumstances in which this won- 
drous change occurred. For many days I had gone 
sorrowing. I cried unto God for the pardon prom- 
ised to the penitent ; but he seemed deaf to my 
entreaties. One night in the great congregation I 
presented myself for prayer; but no peace came. 
I returned home and retired at once to my cham- 
ber. I knelt near the window and heard, or seemed 
to hear, the voice of One saying unto me, " I love 
them that love me ; and they that seek me early 
shall find me." That promise was mine. It was 
my Father's assurance of a loving welcome. It was 
but a moment, and I was in his arms. It was a 
rapturous hour. All things were changed. Sorrow- 
ing and sighing fled from my bosom. The Spirit of 
God witnessed with my spirit that I was born again. 
" Being justified by faith, I had peace with God." 
I never afterward had a doubt of my conversion. 
Even in the most unsatisfactory days of my Chris- 
tian life I could not question the reality of the 
work of grace in my youthful heart. 

In my twenty-first year I was ordained pastor of 
the First Baptist Church, West Philadelphia, then 
just organized. Here God greatly blessed my 
labors in the salvation of sinners. I often marveled 



REV. EDGAR M. LEVY, D.D. 49 

how one so partially consecrated could be so suc- 
cessful. I am conscious now that I was proud of 
my success, and that it was needful for God to 
humble and afflict me. 

After a pastorate of fourteen years I accepted a 
call to Newark, N. J. Here, also, God wonderfully 
blessed my labors, and hundreds were added to the 
Church. But O, how were all my services, even 
the best, mixed with selfishness, ambition, and 
pride ! A consciousness of this often filled me with 
shame and sorrow. Then I would make a new 
effort to improve my life by more watchfulness, 
zeal, and prayer; and although failure was sure to 
follow, yet, not knowing of any better method, I 
would tread the same weary road over and over 
again. 

Severe afflictions visited me. The sweetest voice 
of the household group was hushed ; the brightest 
eyes were darkened in death ; health failed ; many 
friends proved unreliable ; hopes withered, and the 
way grew rough and thorny. My unsanctified soul, 
instead of learning submission, became impatient of 
restraint, would sometimes murmur against the 
dealings of God with me, question his wisdom, and 
doubt his love. These feelings would not always 
prevail. There would be periods of relenting. 
Mortified at the indulgence of unchristian passions, 
I could not refrain from weeping before God with 
true contrition of heart ; but it was only to return 



50 FORTY WITNESSES. 

to the same bitter experience. That marvelous 
portrait which is hung up in the seventh chapter 
of Romans, and which portrays the fearful struggle 
between will and power — between the evil that is 
hated and yet committed, and the good that is ap- 
proved and yet not performed — is a faithful picture 
of my condition at this time. 

After a residence of ten years in Newark I re- 
turned, in the autumn of 1868, to the scene of my 
early labors, and became pastor of the Berean 
Baptist Church, Philadelphia. Here I found the 
religious condition of the members of my new 
charge as unsatisfactory as my own. They were 
in a cold, barren, worldly state. I have sel- 
dom seen a church more broken and paralyzed. I 
grieved for them with tender compassion. This 
solicitude in their behalf produced a fresh conscious- 
ness of my own imperfections. I hated sin. I felt 
that it weakened my moral powers, grieved the 
Holy Spirit, interrupted my communion with God 
and impaired my usefulness. One Sunday after- 
noon I entered my school-room unusually depressed. 
A sense of utter helplessness came over me. As 
my tear-dimmed eyes surveyed the school I was 
painfully moved by the number of adult scholars 
who were unconverted. I returned to my study 
crying, " Who is sufficient for these things ? " 

In February, 1871, Mr. Purdy, an evangelist, was 
holding meetings in the Methodist church adjacent 



REV. EDGAR M. LEVY, D.D. 5 1 

to mine. I was invited by the pastor to attend 
these efforts to promote Christian holiness. I went 
timidly at first, and yet I continued to go every 
afternoon for several days. There were divine in- 
fluences drawing me there. Many Christians from 
different churches were also in attendance. Day 
after day, with meekness and gentleness, and yet 
with unwavering confidence, they told the story of 
long years of conflict, and of ultimate and complete 
triumph through simple faith in the blood that 
cleanses from all sin, of their soul-rest and abiding 
peace, of their power with God and man, and the 
fullness of their joy. At first I became deeply in- 
terested, and then my heart began to melt. I said : 
These Christians are certainly in possession of a 
secret of wonderful power and sweetness. What 
can it be? Is it justification? No; it cannot be 
that. I have experienced the blessing of justifica- 
tion ; by it I have been absolved from all my past 
sins ; by it I stand in the righteousness of Christ, 
and every privilege of a child of God, and every grace 
of the blessed Holy Spirit, has been secured to me ; 
but I do not realize that it has destroyed the power 
of inbred sin, or ended " the war in my members," 
or brought to me complete rest of soul. I have 
peace ; but it is often broken by " fear which has 
torment." I am conscious of loving God, but like 
some sickly, flickering flame, I am expecting every 
moment to see it expire altogether. I have joy, 



52 FORTY WITNESSES. 

but, like a shallow brook, the drought exhausts it. 
I have faith, but it is such a poor, weak thing, that 
I am in doubt, sometimes, whether it is faith at all. 
" I Hate vain thoughts ; " and yet they continue to 
come, and seem at home in my mind. I believe 
that Jesus saves from sin ; and yet I sin from day 
to day, and the dark stains are every-where visible. 
Prayer is inestimably sweet ; but, alas ! it often be- 
comes an effort. To work for Christ is a great privi- 
lege; but it often wearies me or degenerates into mere 
routine. The ordinances of religion yield comfort 
and strength ; but I find as often that all spirituality 
and power have retreated from them, leaving their 
channels dry. I sometimes get glimpses of Him 
whom my soul loveth, but, O! how soon the bright 
vision fades; and " he hideth himself'' is again the 
deep, earnest cry of my heart. Now, these believers 
have an experience altogether different from mine. 
Once, it is true, they felt as I feel, and mourned as 
I mourn, over broken vows, sinful tempers, inter- 
mittent devotions, and repeated failures. But a 
wonderful change is now manifest. " They are 
rooted and grounded in love." " Being made free 
from sin," they now bring forth fruit unto holiness. 
Having purged themselves from all filthiness of the 
flesh and spirit they have become " vessels unto 
honor, sanctified and meet for the Master's use, and 
prepared unto every good work." My desires were 
kindled. An insatiable hunger seized my soul. 



REV. EDGAR M. LEVY, D.D. 53 

Just at this stage of my experience the meetings 
ended, and Mr. Purdy was compelled to leave for 
another appointment. Before leaving, however, 
a suggestion was made, that he might be induced 
to return and hold meetings in my own church. 
It was a surprise to me. I was not sure that my 
people would consent. I could do nothing, there- 
fore, but leave it for the decision of the church on 
the coming Sabbath. I did so, and, greatly to 
my surprise, there was not the slightest objection 
raised. It was of the Lord. 

During the ten days that preceded the meeting I 
was more than usually prayerful. I commenced a 
careful examination of the doctrine of sanctification. 
I reviewed my theological studies. I could scarcely 
think, or read, or pray on any other subject. I 
conversed with intimate friends of my own and 
other denominations. Nearly all of them pronounced 
the views advanced as nothing else than unscriptural 
and pernicious errors. They admitted the exist- 
ence and universality of the disease, but could tell 
of no adequate remedy this side the grave. They 
allowed that the malady might be mollified ; but in 
this life, they affirmed, it could never be perfectly 
healed. I searched the Scriptures, but, alas ! my 
"my eyes were holden," so that I could not see 
that perfect deliverance from sin which God has 
provided, through the redemption of Christ, for his 
believing people. Those passages in the word of 



54 FORTY WITNESSES. 

God which require of all his children holiness of 
character, purity of heart, the entire sanctification 
of the soul, body and spirit, I was led to regard, 
from educational training, as marks — very high in- 
deed — after which every Christian should aspire, 
but to which no one could ever attain ; or else as 
figurative expressions, indicating that at conversion 
we were made, in some judicial sense, holy before 
God. 

These views, however, could no longer satisfy 
me. I had an intense longing for something better. 
With the poet, my poor heart cried out: 

" I'm weary of the strife within, 
O let me turn from self and sin ! " 

The first day of our meeting had come. The 
church was well filled. I introduced Mr. Purdy. 
But I had many misgivings, and a secret desire in 
my heart that he would say nothing about sancti- 
fication, but bend all his efforts to the conversion 
of sinners. This, however, was not his way. Like 
a wise master-builder, he commenced to lay the 
foundation broad and deep. He took our Confes- 
sion of Faith, and urged, from the teaching con- 
tained therein, that we should accept the doctrine 
of sanctification by faith. Our Covenant was next 
produced ; and here he reminded us that in this we 
solemnly promised that we would so regulate our 
lives as to enable us to " stand perfect and com- 



REV. EDGAR M. LEVY, D.D. 55 

plete in all the will of God." Last of all, he spoke 
of our baptism as a beautiful symbol of our death 
unto sin, our burial with Christ, and our resurrec- 
tion to a new and holy life. " According to your 
form of baptism," he said, " the body is buried in 
water as the corpse is buried in the grave. In all 
your teachings on this subject you insist that it is 
a figure of the believer's death and burial unto sin« 
But that is not all. You not only claim, in this act, 
that you die to sin, but that you also rise to a life 
of holiness. * Now, if we be dead with Christ, we 
believe that we shall also live with him : knowing 
that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no 
more ; death hath no more dominion over him. 
For in that he died, he died unto sin once; but in 
that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon 
ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but 
alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.' ' 
(Rom. 6). With great emotion and emphasis he 
said, " You have the type, the figure, the symbol : 
will you deny the doctrine, and make what distin- 
guishes you as a denomination a mere empty, life- 
less ceremonial ?" 

After the sermon a number of persons bore testi- 
mony to the fullness and completeness of their 
present salvation. They represented several evan- 
gelical denominations — the Methodist, the Episco- 
palian, the Presbyterian, the Friend, the Baptist ; 
and there was a beautiful harmony in all that they 



56 FORTY WITNESSES. 

said. I had no reason to doubt the truthfulness of 
their statements. " I might question, " I thought, 
" their logic, find fault with their theories, and reject 
their phraseology; but how could I dispose of their 
experience? My judgment was assailed as it had 
never been before. After the meeting I returned 
to my study, fell upon the floor, and poured out my 
soul before God. I did not pray for pardon, but 
for purity. I did not seek clearer evidences of my 
acceptance, but to be " made free from sin," not in 
a judicial or theological sense, but by a real, con- 
scious, inwrought holiness. 

That night I was unable to sleep. I was com- 
pletely broken down in heart before God. The 
vision of Isaiah seemed reproduced. " I saw also 
the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up." 
" Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone ; be- 
cause I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in 
the midst of a people of unclean lips ; for mine eyes 
have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." 

The morning at length dawned, and on every 
ray I could read, " Walk in the light as he is in the 
light." " Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts," as 
chanted by the seraphim, seemed floated through 
all the air. As I thought of God, it was not so 
much his power or wisdom or justice or love that 
attracted my attention, as his infinite, spotless holi- 
ness. 

That day, Friday, March 9, 1871, was observed 



REV. EDGAR M. LEVY, D.D. $? 

by the church as a special season of fasting, humili- 
ation, and prayer. My soul was in great agony. I 
can compare my experience on this memorable day 
to nothing else than crucifixion. It seemed to me 
that I had gone up with Christ to Calvary and was 
transfixed to the cruel and shameful cross. A sense 
of loneliness and abandonment stole over my mind. 
" An horror, of great darkness, fell upon me," and 
all the powers of hell assaulted my soul. The ene- 
my brought before me, with tremendous force, my 
life-long prejudices, my theological training, my 
professional standing, my denominational pride. It 
was suggested that I must leave every thing behind 
me should I go a step farther in this direction. The 
dread of being misunderstood, of having my motives 
questioned, of being called " unsound in doctrine," of 
being slighted by my ministerial brethren, and 
treated with suspicion and coldness, filled my heart 
with unspeakable anguish. Every thing appeared 
to be sliding from under my feet. My sight grew 
dim, my strength departed, and faintness, like unto 
death, came upon me. 

This mental conflict, however, soon subsided. 
The storm-clouds passed away, and light began to 
stream in. I was now done with theorizing, with 
philosophical doubts and vain speculations. The 
struggle was over. I cared no longer for the opin- 
ions of men. I was willing to be a fool for Christ 
and to suffer the loss of all things. I was like a 



58 - FORTY WITNESSES. 

little child. I cried out, " Teach me thy way, O 
Lord ! and lead me in a plain path." Just then the 
fountain of cleansing was revealed. Jesus stood 
before me, with his bleeding wounds, saying, " Come 
in ! Come in ! " 

I turned to my congregation and said, " I stand 
before you to-day a poor, weak, and helpless sinner. 
I have tried to find the way of holiness by every 
possible means. All my efforts, my struggles, my 
prayers, my fasting, and my round of duties have 
proved miserable failures. God is making a won- 
derful revelation to my long-darkened understand- 
ing. I am confident now that it is not by growth, 
or by effort, or by works of any kind; ' for then 
would our salvation be of works, and not of grace/ 
' In that day, saith the Lord, there shall be a fount- 
ain opened to the house of David, and to the inhab- 
itants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.* 
That day has come. Here lies the fountain of my 
Saviour's blood. It was opened for me, even me," 

I fell upon my knees and bowed my face to the 
floor. For a moment I felt that I was sinking in a 
great sea, and that all its waves were going over me. 
But they did not seem to be the waters of death. 

The Spirit of God whispered those precious 
words : " But if we walk in the light, as he is in the 
light, we have fellowship one with another, and the 
blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all 
sin." My faith laid hold of this wonderful truth, 



REV. EDGAR M. LEVY, D,D. 59 

A strange peace entered into my soul. I exclaimed 
within myself, " I am free ! My heart, my soul, 
my mind, my body, are washed in the blood of the 
Lamb ! " It was all so strange, so new, so unlike 
any thing I had ever experienced before, that I 
could not utter a word, and then the only senti- 
ment of my heart was, u Lord, it is done ! I am 
saved ! " 

When the meeting ended I repaired immediately 
to the parsonage. I experienced great physical ex- 
haustion, like Jacob, who was never so weak as 
when he had just prevailed with the angel. 

I threw myself into a chair, and at once the 
blessed baptism came. I seemed filled with all the 
fullness of God. I wept for joy. All night long I 
wept. All the next day, at the family altar, in the 
street, and in the sanctuary, tears continued to flow. 
The fountains of my being seemed broken up, and 
my heart was dissolved in gratitude and praise. 
My soul seemed filled with pulses, every one thrill- 
ing and throbbing with such waves of love and 
rapture that I thought I must die from excess of 
life. 

At once I had a new and wonderful sense of the 
presence of Christ. Those words of Jesus were 
made real to me : " Abide in me, and I in you." I 
had now an abiding Christ. With Mrs. Edwards I 
could say, " The presence of God was so near, so 
precious and so real, that I seemed scarcely conscious 



60 FORTY WITNESSES. 

of any thing else. The whole world, with all its 
enjoyments and all its troubles, seemed to be noth- 
ing; my God was my all, my only portion." 

The sovereign will of God seemed at once so 
sweet and blessed that I felt lost in the thought 
that God ruled over and in me. I found myself 
praising him for every trial, sorrow, disappointment, 
and loss. 

My sense of unworthiness was greatly quickened. 
I felt so small, so weak, so utterly nothing, I could 
no longer pray in the sanctuary, as had been my 
custom, in a standing position. I wanted to keep 
sinking lower and lower. And this desire brought 
a strange pleasure. 

I felt a sweet spirit of forgiveness in my heart. 
It was easy for me to pray for those who had in- 
jured me ; persons who had become repulsive to 
me appeared, all at once, as possessing many excel- 
lences. I saw so much more to admire, and so 
much less to condemn, in the people of God, that 
it seemed God had " made all things new." 

My love for the brethren was much enlarged. 
Denominational distinction disappeared, and my 
heart flowed out in tender affection for " all those 
that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." 

Answers to prayer were continually occurring. 
The promise was made good, u Whatsoever ye shall 
ask the Father in my name, he will give it you." 
One out of many instances of this nature I wish to 



REV. EDGAR M. LEVY, D.D. 6l 

relate. During two or three weeks I had scarcely 
slept at all, first from excess of sorrow and then 
from excess of joy. Night after night witnessed 
my utter inability to sleep. Mind and body began 
to show great nervous exhaustion, which only in- 
creased the tendency to wakefulness. One night 
after retiring, and suffering as before, it occurred to 
me, " Now ask Jesus." At once I raised my heart 
in prayer, saying, " Blessed Jesus! I need sleep. 
Effort will not bring it. I now seek it from thee ; 
let me go to sleep." Immediately I fell asleep, and 
continued to sleep soundly all that night and every 
night since. 

My mind became solemnly impressed with the 
personality of the devil. For several days, it is 
true, he was not permitted to attack my soul in the 
slightest manner. For the first time in my life I 
was so free from all temptation that I was not con- 
scious of his existence. But it was only for a time. 
One afternoon, just as I took my seat in the pulpit, 
Satan stood at my side in dread personality. To 
my mental sight he appeared, as never before, fear- 
fully and maliciously real. At once I became un- 
conscious of all beside. He suggested such thoughts 
as these : " Your present experience is, I admit, 
very satisfactory. But will it continue ? What will 
you do when these meetings shall end, and these 
birds have done singing, and all these Christians 
are gone to their several churches and you shall be 



62 FORTY WITNESSES. 

alone ? " Words utterly fail to convey to another 
the malignant force of these satanic utterances. 
But with humble boldness I answered, " I can do 
without the creature, but not without the Creator. 
Human sympathy and Christian fellowship are inex- 
pressibly sweet ; but they are not indispensable to 
my happiness or safety. Possessing Christ I have 
all." " And he showed me Joshua the high-priest 
standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan 
standing at his right hand to resist him. And the 
Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O 
Satan ! even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem 
rebuke thee : is not this a brand plucked out of the 
fire ? Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, 
and stood before the angel. And he answered and 
spake unto those that stood before him, saying, 
Take away the filthy garments from him. And 
unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine in- 
iquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee 
with change of raiment." (Zech. 3. 1-4). At once 
I had such a ravishing view of the infinite loveliness 
and all-sufficiency of Jesus that my heart glowed 
with new rapture, as the words of the poet came 
flashing upon my mind : 



" O Lord ! I would delight in thee, 
And on thy care depend ; 

To thee in every trouble flee, 
My best, my only Friend. 



REV. EDGAR M. LEVY, D.D. 63 

" When all created streams are dried 

Thy fullness is the same ; 
May I with this be satisfied, 

And glory in thy name ! " 

Instantly the devil fled, and I was dissolved in 
tears of gratitude. 

Several weeks after this, while riding in a street- 
car, I was again fiercely assaulted by this enemy of 
all righteousness. Thoughts of evil darted through 
my mind like summer lightning. I remember well 
how, in former years, I would exert all my mental 
powers to put from me these vile suggestions. It 
used to be a mighty conflict between the powers of 
darkness and my own puny strength ; and it seldom 
ended without leaving its stain and involving my 
soul in great spiritual depression. But now, with- 
out an effort or a struggle, I found myself, like a 
fluttered dove, fleeing to Christ. In a moment the 
thoughts of evil were gone, and my soul exulted in 
the triumphs of all-victorious faith : * 

" The dove hath neither claw nor sting, 

Nor weapon for to fight : 
She owes her safety to her wing, 

Her victory to flight." 

The personality and office-work of the blessed 
Holy Spirit were revealed to my spiritual percep- 
tions as they had never been before. He taught 
me more of his own adorable being in one moment 



64 FORTY WITNESSES. 

than I had learned from theological treatises during 
all my life. And O ! what a Comforter he became 
to me ! He seemed to regard me as a little weak, 
convalescent child, that needed to be carried in the 
arms and comforted. He had been before my Re- 
prover; but now he sweetly whispered, u No more 
reproof, no more wounding. I am come to com- 
fort, to heal, to sanctify, and to * abide with you 
forever/ " 

Indeed, all the doctrines of the Gospel at once 
became luminous in the presence of the Sanctifier. 
What was formerly a speculative conviction became 
now a wondrous reality. What once appeared in 
dim outline, like some beautiful landscape partly 
revealed by moonlight, now glowed with distinct 
and golden splendor. 

Life has become marvelously simplified and 
natural. I no longer work for liberty, but as having 
liberty ; not for, but from life. That which before 
was either impossible, or at least difficult, is now 
natural and easy. 

I do not find this life — what in my ignorance I 
once regarded it — one of mysticism, indolence, and 
self-gratulation, but a life of ceaseless activity amid 
undisturbed repose ; of perpetual absence of all 
weariness amid perpetual employment. Neither 
do I find it a condition of stagnation. All life in- 
volves growth, and there are no limits to the possi- 
bilities of growth in the life of faith. The more the 



REV. EDGAR M. LEVY, D.D. 65 

soul receives the more it is capable of receiving, 
and the more it yearns to receive. 

I have not realized that this experience exempts 
us from trial, persecution and disappointment. 
For me the way has frequently been strewn with 
thorns rather than roses. Unkindness has often 
wounded my heart. Friends have turned away, 
sometimes with pity and sometimes with blame. 
At times I have been in heaviness through mani- 
fold temptation, and faith has almost yielded to the 
outward pressure ; but, blessed be God, for sixteen 
years I have been preserved from all murmuring, 
disquietude, or fear. The trials have not been too 
many or too severe. Every arrow has been feath- 
ered with love, and every furnace blast has but con- 
sumed the dross. I am saved ! Saved to the ut- 
termost ! Glory to the Lamb ! 

EDGAR M. LEVY. 

Philadelphia, Pa., March, 1887. 
5 



66 FORTY WITNESSES. 



VI. 

JENNIE F. WILLING. 

(METHODIST.) 

IN a prayerless home, my first remembered relig- 
£> ious impressions were received when my sister, 
fourteen years older than I, came home from a revival 
meeting and told me that she had given her heart 
to the Saviour. She prayed with me, and I now 
think I was converted then, though only five years 
old. She lived till I was eight, a beautiful, consist- 
ent, Christian life. When she died my grief was as 
deep as a child may know. But the saddest thought 
of all was that now I would have no one to help me 
be good. 

I kept up my praying secretly, and I was often 
greatly moved when I went to church, though the 
influences about me were far from helpful to Chris- 
tian living. When I was eleven I joined the 
church. 

To all others it could have been of small conse- 
quence that a little child should publicly profess 
faith in Christ ; but to me the step was of the 
utmost importance, for I gave up my dancing, card- 
playing, and, four years later, my novel-reading, 



JENNIE F. WILLING. 67 

because I believed they would hinder my efforts to 
serve the Lord. 

When I was nineteen all my family were brought 
to Christ during a revival in the Congregational 
church of which I was a member. During the 
meetings I worked incessantly, and with great joy 
in the Saviour. Yet all the time I was certain there 
were tendencies within that would draw me back to 
my worldliness when the revival pressure was re- 
moved. 

As soon as my brothers were converted I began 
to feel an intense desire for strength that I might 
take care of them when their times of temptation 
should come. I fasted and prayed, asking in an 
agony of earnestness, " Is there no way to be estab- 
lished so that one will be as religious all the year 
round as she is during the revival? " I talked with 
my pastor and the best of the church members, but 
they said, in substance, " Don't worry; you're doing 
very well. Be sure and read your Bible and pray 
a good deal, and you'll get on as well as the rest." 
" But will we all grow cold when the meetings are 
over?" "Why, yes, of course. That's about the way 
it has to go." " Then my brothers will backslide," 
I said, almost in despair. " They've been very 
wicked, and, unless I keep near the Saviour I know 
I can't help them as they need, and they'll not live 
through the summer." 

Here was a paradox. Never happier in Christ, 



68 FORTY WITNESSES. 

and yet never in greater unrest of soul. The nearer 
Jesus, the keener the heart-hunger. At last, worn 
out with strugglings, after having tried every other 
aid, I got down as a little helpless, tired child, and 
said, " Dear Saviour, if thou ever didst such a thing 
as to establish one in thy grace, so that she could be 
as religious in summer as in winter, I beg of thee to 
so establish me ! " And he did — the next moment. 

Though I was surely his child before, a change 
passed upon me as decided as going at once from 
densest midnight to broadest noon. When I rose 
from my knees I said to a friend, " I shaVt back- 
slide this summer." " Why not? How do you 
know?" " Because Christ has established me. I 
haven't the shadow of a fear now." " I wish he 
would establish me." " He will if you'll give him 
all your heart and trust him fully. His perfect love 
casts out all fear." 

Though quite horrified when a friend, to whom I 
related this experience a few months later, suggested 
the possibility of its being sanctification, I used in 
my public and private testimonies the same lan- 
guage that those do who profess that grace. 

After becoming the wife of a Methodist minister 
I learned to use the Wesleyan phraseology. 

Within a year after my marriage, however, I was 
thrown in contact with a set of people who pro- 
fessed perfection in the strongest terms, and yet who 
were chiefly characterized by their censoriousness. 



JENNIE F. WILLING. 69 

Resenting their strictures, I grieved the Holy Spirit 
and lost the grace that had given me profound rest 
under most trying circumstances. 

The next ten years were spent in an almost inces- 
sant struggle to regain the forfeited treasure. A 
Christian, zealous and constant, yet never fully at rest. 
Again, the nearer Jesus the more heavily the burden 
of innate sinfulnesss pressed my heart. Days were 
spent in fasting, nights in prayer, and tears were shed 
till my physical strength seemed quite exhausted — 
all to no purpose. The main trouble was, as I came 
afterward to see, I was determined to have the same 
set of emotions that I had in my early experience 
before I would believe my prayer answered and the 
grace restored. The divine rule, " By grace ye are 
saved through faith" could not be abrogated for 
me, and so my cries and prayers were of little use. 

At last I began to use common sense with my 
earnestness. I went through the problem of my ex- 
perience as slowly, difficultly and coolly as though 
it were a mathematical or logical question. 

The first point settled, never to be reconsidered, 
was the relation of the emotions to the actual relig- 
ious state. Usually unreliable, they must be ruled out 
of the court as unfit to testify. The next step was 
to find the limits of the consecration required. God 
has no right to hinge our salvation upon our doing 
what we do not know how to do ; it is impossible 
for us to give him what we do not know about. He 



yo FORTY WITNESSES. 

loves us too well to require the impossible ; so the 
limit of our knowledge must be the limit of respon- 
sibility in consecration. " O Lord, I give thee all 
I know to give, just as well as I know how. When 
I come to know and have more I will give more. 
There, that consecration must be as complete as I 
can now make it." Satan had driven me so many 
times from that point in the ten, long, wilderness 
years, he did his best to drive me now from this 
position. I held my position. " I am honest. I 
purpose to be wholly the Lord's at any cost. If I 
do not give all it is because I do not know how ; 
and Christ cannot hold me responsible for what I 
do not know." I settled it that only two points 
were to be made : complete consecration and complete 
trust, "I have been all these years trying to believe; 
now I will give up trying. I will simply say, I do give 
all to Jesus as well as I can. He asked for me, so, 
of course, he takes me. If he really wants to save 
me — and it is wicked to think any thing else — he has 
the chance, for I have given myself wholly to him. 
Does he now save me? I don't feel it. Feeling is 
not to be considered. It is the fact I want. Am I 
now cleansed from sin by the blood of Christ ? He 
has me in his hands, and he so hates sin he will not 
let me stay unclean when he has the chance to 
cleanse me. Yes, I believe he now saves me fully, 
and I am willing to risk the assertion to my hus- 
band, to the Church, to the world." 



JENNIE F. WILLING. 7 1 

It took nearly two weeks of slow, close thinking 
and prayer, for me to crowd myself, inch by inch, 
through this process. The promise used of the 
Holy Spirit to strengthen my almost paralyzed be- 
lieving power was that word in John, "And this is 
the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask 
any thing according to his will he heareth us, and if 
we know that he heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we 
know that we have the petitions that we desired of 
him. ,, Only two conditions are given here — that 
what we ask is "according to his will," and that "he 
heareth us." " It is according to his will that I be 
cleansed. The opposite of this proposition is 
not thinkable. He heareth me. If he is with me 
alway, as he promised, he cannot help hearing me. 
Then I know that I have the petition, even the 
cleansing of my heart." 

Since then, though often stumbling and always 

full of infirmities, I have been enabled by divine 

grace to walk in the light. Whenever a doubt has 

risen, or I have fallen into sin, I have gone at once 

through the " process " of consecration and trust, 

believing that, as certainly as two and two make 

four, this, honestly done, results in the cleansing 

from all sin. 

JENNIE F. WILLING. 

Lake Bluff, III., July 2, 1887. 



J2 FORTY WITNESSES, 



VII. 

MRS. M. BAXTER. 

(CHURCH OF ENGLAND.) 

*IDROUGHT up as a member of the Episcopal 
'T Church of England, under a ministry then 
unspiritual, I had, although trained to a high moral 
standard, " no hope," and was " without God in 
the world." In his grace he sought me, first by 
strong convictions that my life was fundamentally 
wrong and that I had no real contact with God. By 
the side of my father's grave, in my ignorance of 
God's love, I vowed that if he would speak with 
me as he did with Abraham and Noah I would 
willingly give up my sight, my hearing, or any 
thing else for the privilege. 

Only four months later, on October 12, 1858, God 
revealed himself to me in his own word. A friend, 
who had also lost her father, came to see me and 
spoke to me about my soul. Till that time no one 
had ever asked me a direct question, I told her 
frankly that I would not ask God for the pardon of 
my sins ; I should be asking an unjust thing, and 
were he unjust I could not worship him. God 
guided the reply; it was his own word: "All we 



MRS. M. BAXTER. 73 

like sheep have gone astray ; we have turned every- 
one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on 
him the iniquity of us all." (Isa. 53, 6.) Without a 
word, without a formal prayer, Jesus stood revealed 
to me as juat, and yet the justifier of him that 
believeth. I had what I had longed for, commun- 
ion with God, in which Jesus would speak to me and 
I to him, and for many nights could not spare the 
time for sleep. He made it no difficulty to me 
to give up all for him ; it came quite natural. 
Dancing, acting, novels, fashionable dress, jewels, 
caricaturing, etc., died out of my life by the absorb- 
ing power of the new life within. It made me feel 
I possessed a knowledge which would save men 
from hell, and almost all my time was spent in 
speaking with individuals and seeking to win them 
to Christ. 

But some months later, more than half a year 
after my conversion, although I saw souls contin- 
ually saved, yet I felt a need for a deeper work of 
grace. A number of the Guide to Holiness was put 
into my hands, in which was an article by the late 
Mrs. Phoebe Palmer. I took it to the Lord, and 
then and there was led to yield up myself a living 
sacrifice, and to accept the cleansing from all sin as 
far as I then understood it, and in some way 
accepted the Holy Ghost to possess me. At this 
time the acquaintance of the late Rev. Mr. Aitken 
of Pendem, was an untold blessing to me. For eight 



74 FORTY WITNESSES. 

years after this time my life seemed to be a going 
on from strength to strength. It was but a small 
sphere of labor which God gave me, in a little town 
and the surrounding villages, but he worked 
blessedly and gave me, through correspondence and 
through notes on the Scriptures, an increasing 
influence. 

But I did not know how much I was occupied at 
that time with myself and my own holiness. I fell 
into spiritual pride. This opened the way for other 
sins of temper, etc. I was sorely disappointed with 
myself; I felt as though God had failed me. I had 
conceived a very high and ascetic standard, and I 
had fallen miserably below it, and though I cried to 
God for hours by day and hours by night, my old joy 
and peace did not return. In the year 1873 I first saw 
Gladness in Jesus, by the Rev. W. E. Boardman, 
and in reading it my eyes were opened to see that 
I had been all this time dealing with myself instead 
of acting truly to my first consecration of myself to 
God and letting him deal with me. All my confi- 
dence in my own experience as a saviour was gone. 
My old experience lived again, it is true, but I was 
on the divine side of it, seeing Jesus as my sanctifi- 
cation, Jesus dwelling in me to be patience in me, 
love in me, and all else I needed. 

From this time God has been closely educating 
my conscience. While he keeps me from sinning 
as I trust him, he teaches me from time to time his 



MRS. M. BAXTER. 75 

own views of sin, so that things which a year ago 
were not sin to me are so now. But the conflict is 
transferred ; the battle is the Lord's. He cleanses, 
he helps, he fights. I trust and praise him. He 
has taught me the same blessed faith for the body 
as the soul. All glory to his holy name. 

M. BAXTER. 
London, England, March 4, 1887. 



?6 FORTY WITNESSES. 



VIII. 

REV. WILLIAM REDDY, D.D. 

(METHODIST.) 

TT is a delicate and difficult thing to speak or to 
£> write of one's own personal experience and not 
to have self crop out. Our Lord said, " He 
that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory, but 
he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is 
true and no unrighteousness is in him." Can I do 
this in endeavoring to " declare what the Lord has 
done for my soul ? " May the Holy Spirit give me 
a " single eye," that I may magnify the grace that 
" hath saved me, and called me with a holy calling." 
I was born in what is now Ledyard township, 
Cayuga County, N. Y., September 28, 18 13. I was 
at different times, in early life, somewhat convicted 
of the need of salvation, and made some feeble and 
abortive attempts to seek the Lord. I was induced 
to attend a Methodist revival-meeting and found 
myself bracing against the influence of the meeting. 
But after having declined to go to the altar on the 
solicitation of the Congregationalist minister, who 
had known my former failure, I at last decided to 
yield, and in going I said, " I will never leave that 



REV. WILLIAM REDDY, D.D. H 

altar till I am saved, if there is salvation for me." 
I struggled and wrestled, but when I gave up my 
struggles and sank down in self-despair, saying, " if 
I perish, I perish. " I then found rest and a degree 
of peace. I felt that I had crossed the line and was, 
by choice and surrender, " on the Lord's side," but 
without much emotion, and without a divine and 
intelligent assurance of pardon. But I was settled 
in my choice and purpose. I was tempted, before I 
reached my home, that I was not converted. And 
I could only answer, " I do not feel as I expected. 
I would not dare to say that I am certain that I am 
converted ; but I shall never go back. My choice is 
made. If I am not converted I shall not rest until 
I know for certain that I am." Though I immedi- 
ately gave my name to the church, and met in class 
and attended secret prayer and all religious duties, 
yet it was some months later before I was so blessed 
in secret prayer as to banish all doubts. I was nine- 
teen years old at this time. I was unacquainted 
with Methodist literature, but I was hungry to 
know the truth. I procured books and read with 
avidity whatever pertained to the new life upon 
which I had entered. I devoured all the literature 
I could. I found the doctrine and the experience of 
perfect love inculcated and exemplified. It was a 
revelation to me, so unlike the doctrine of the 
necessary indwelling of original sin, and the im- 
possibility of living without " committing sin," in 



78 FORTY WITNESSES. 

which, from childhood, I had been taught. I deter- 
mined to test its truth, first, by a careful study of 
the Scriptures. This being settled affirmatively, I 
then resolved to test it by experience, if possible to 
me, as I had learned that God is no respecter of 
persons. Then followed a prolonged struggle for 
more than nine months. I sought " with strong cry- 
ing and tears" in my closet and in my barn, some- 
times till midnight. 

The Memoir of Mrs. Hester Ann Rogers was the 
instrument of my deliverance. I was then a class- 
leader, and I had been to meet my class and had 
taken the little Memoir with me to read to my class 
some of her spiritual letters, in order to stir up the 
class to seek with me this great salvation. O how 
my soul hungered and thirsted for this blessing! I 
could truly say, " 'Tis worse than death my God to 
love, and not my God alone." 

Returning to my home, my (Presbyterian) mother 
having retired, I lighted a candle and sat down on 
the carpet in front of the stove, and opened upon a 
page containing a quotation from Mr. Fletcher, in 
which he illustrated the text, " Reckon ye your- 
selves also to be dead indeed unto sin, and alive 
unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." He 
showed that as when we reckon with a creditor or 
with our host, and have paid all, we reckon ourselves 
free, "so now reckon with God — Jesus has paid 
all, paid for thee, hath purchased thy pardon and 



REV. WILLIAM REDDY, D.D. 79 

thy holiness, and it is now GocTs command, ' reckon 
thyself dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God.' 

begin (said he) to reckon now, and believe, be- 
lieve, and continue to believe; for it is retained as it 
is received, by faith alone. " The view thus opened 
revealed to my eye the atonement — its provisions 
for me, its freeness and its fullness — and that my be- 
lieving was simply crediting the truth of salvation 
as already wrought out in Christ. My believing 
made nothing new; but what was " true in him be- 
fore " became " true in me." I began simply to 
reckon myself dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto 
God through Jesus Christ my Saviour. The words 
of St. John then had a meaning which I had not 
previously seen : " Which thing is true in him and 
in you, because the darkness is past and the true 
light now shineth." This was the immediate effect: 

1 seemed to myself to be reduced to a cipher, and 
Christ filled the whole horizon of my vision ! O 
how serene and peaceful I felt ! 

" Of my Saviour possessed, 
I was perfectly blessed, 
As if filled with the fullness of love." 

In this peaceful frame I retired to rest, reckoning 
myself dead indeed unto sin. The thought was 
suggested, " This will all pass off with the sleep of 
the night ; " but I still reckoned, rested and rejoiced. 



80 FORTY WITNESSES. 

(This occurred in 1835.) In the morning I con- 
tinued the reckoning, and was free. 

The next day after my deliverance, while ab- 
sorbed in spiritual communings, the suggestion 
came to me, " Are you willing to confess what the 
Lord has done for you?" This was a startling 
thought. I dropped my eye to look at the sugges- 
tion, and immediately it was whispered, " If you 
confess this blessing you will be called a ' Perfec- 
tionist/ " and at once the odium and the reproach 
which attached to others because of wild and fanat- 
ical doctrines then regnant in the land seemed im- 
pending over me. Then, further, it was suggested : 
" You w r ill enjoy this but a little while, and then, if 
you have made the confession and lost the blessing, 
it will bring dishonor upon the blessed doctrine. " 
Without realizing that these last suggestions came 
from the enemy, I yielded, and determined to be 
silent and endeavor to live it for a season first ; and 
in an instant I found I had lost the blessing. I then 
saw the snare in which I had been taken. I had 
shrunk from " the reproach of the cross," and I had 
distrusted the keeping power of my deliverer. O, 
the sad reaction which came over me ; self-reproach, 
loss of the keen relish, loss of confidence, and loss 
of a sense of the presence of Jesus, which so de- 
lightfully I had enjoyed. From being an heir I 
was a bankrupt. But I resolved at once to recover 
my forfeited inheritance in Christ. 



REV. WILLIAM REDDY, D.D. 8 1 

But I was hampered ; yet I continued faithful to 
duty, and sometimes was enabled in secret to trust 
and claim the blessing. But when in public I was 
afraid to confess it. I rounded my corners in my 
testimony, and then would sink again. This fluc- 
tuation continued about four years. Meantime I 
preached the doctrine, and others thought that I 
professed the blessing ; but there was a little reserve 
and evasion. At last, one day, in my secret strug- 
gling, I said: "O Lord, what does hinder me?" 
And I was reminded of my distrust and shrinking in 
regard to confession. I saw it and said, " If I live 
to preach next Sabbath I will confess Jesus as my 
full Saviour, whatever may be my feelings. ,, Sab- 
bath came, and I preached Christ as a full Saviour. 
In class-meeting came the test, and I ventured out 
further in my testimony than I had ever done be- 
fore, and I was correspondingly blest. 

One brother, an exhorter, afterward a traveling 
preacher, received the blessing in class-meeting 
that day. At my afternoon appointment I ven- 
tured still further, and was more explicit, and was 
still more fully blest. In the evening service, in 
class, I heard sung for the first time, " I've given 
all for Christ, he's my all," etc., and it went through 
me as a lightning-streak, and my whole being re- 
sponded, 

" I've given all for Christ, 
He's my all." 



82 FORTY WITNESSES. 

Three things I must record in justice to the facts 
of my later experience. 

I. The advantage which Satan gained over me in 
the first instance has furnished a sort of fulcrum on 
which he has rested his lever in his subsequent as- 
saults and devices toward me, and too successfully 
has he " hindered me " at the same point. It has 
cost me great struggles to rise above the influence 
and to assert my liberty. Hence my "interior life " 
has fluctuated, and been obscured at various times. 
The stem has been broken, but the root has never 
been killed. I have always been in sympathy with 
the theme and with those who are identified with 
it. The more explicit I have been in my teaching 
the clearer has been my own experience and the 
more successful I have been 

£. Whatever of success God has been pleased to 
bestow on my labor and teaching I owe to that 
early initiation into the u interior of the kingdom/' 
and my adherence to the truth touching " the deep 
things of God." 

3. I am humbled in view of frequent lapses in 
spirit and temper, though graciously restored and 
still abiding in Christ. When I have contracted a 
stain upon my white robe I have found no safety 
or relief except by an immediate resort to the 
cleansing fountain of atoning blood, and there to 
wash the stain away. 

Mr. Fletcher's experience in losing it several 



REV. WILLIAM REDDY, D.D. 83 

times before he was established in it has helped me 
in my recovery. I know the power of Jesus to 
cleanse from all sin, and to " save to the uttermost/* 
I know the Holy Ghost as a sanctifier, comforter 
and guide. 

My life has been one of delightful labor, of se- 
vere and repeated trials and bereavements. These 
words of St. Peter have been instructive, inspiring, 
and assuring to me : " But the God of all grace, 
who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ 
Jesus, after that ye have suffered awhile, make 
you perfect" (not in love ; that is supposed to have 
been done, but) "make you perfect'* — that is, 
" stablish, strengthen, settle you " — " establish you 
unblamable in holiness before God unto the coming 
of our Lord Jesus Christ. " 

WILLIAM REDDY. 

Syracuse, N. Y., July 6, 1887. 



84 FORTY WITNESSES. 



IX. 

REV. JAMES MUDGE, B.D. 

(METHODIST.) 

T WAS born at West Springfield, Mass., April 5,. 
«£> 1844, my father — also James — being a member 
of the New England Conference, of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. 

Having been baptized in infancy, and brought up 
piously inside the fold from the beginning, in ac- 
cordance with the ideas implied in that ordinance, 
I was always accounted a very good boy, and my 
conversion, which took place at the age of twelve, 
in a quiet revival in the little village of South Har- 
wich, Mass., September, 1856, was not attended by 
any violent emotions. It was simply a determi- 
nation, under the gentle stimulus of the special 
interest attending the revival, to take up publicly 
the position and perform the duties of an openly- 
avowed Christian believer. Such I became. I 
joined in full the old Common Street Church of 
Lynn, Mass. (whither I had gone to prepare for 
college), on my thirteenth birthday, April 5, 1857. 

I faithfully attended to all Christian duties, speak- 
ing and praying in class and prayer meetings, from 



REV. JAMES MUDGE, B.D. 85 

which I was never absent, and serving as librarian 
in the Sunday-school. I did not falter for a day. 
or so much as once think of turning back, and my 
joy in Jesus steadily increased as I came to know 
him more. 

Before long, however, as I continued my school 
life and church life, I began to find that there were 
certain things hard to do, and for the doing of 
which I did not seem to possess sufficient strength. 
I shrank from the cross involved in talking person- 
ally about religion with my class-mates, and I fell 
into the indulgence of a few doubtful practices in 
reference to which my conscience was not wholly 
at ease. I found myself sliding into a state of half- 
way service, a state wherein I was conscious of 
being only partially consecrated to God. 

Happily I took alarm, after a little, and seeing 
clearly that there was no permanent peace or power 
to be had except in being decisively one thing or 
another, my mind became greatly exercised on the 
subject of FULL SALVATION. From reading a good 
deal about this, and hearing it much spoken of at 
my home and elsewhere, I came to have a strong 
desire for its attainment. So when I went, in 
August, i860, to the annual camp-meeting at East- 
ham, on Cape Cod, as I was accustomed to do from 
year to year, it was with the earnest hope that I 
might receive this great blessing. 

But Monday evening, August 13, the last night 



86 FORTY WITNESSES. 

of the meeting, came without my having reached 
any thing very definite. I had consecrated all, to 
the best of my ability, but had failed to apprehend 
that further necessity, the simple step of appropri- 
ating faith. The Rev. Charles Nichols, in a private 
conversation, made this matter plain, and so broke 
the last link that bound me to the old life. Silently 
and alone, as I bowed in prayer under the oak-trees, 
I firmly made up my mind to take God at his word. 
I determined that for the future, relying entirely 
upon his strength, I would bear every cross and be 
a whole-souled Christian. In a prayer-meeting at 
the tent, between nine and ten that night, I made 
open avowal that the blessing I had sought was 
now obtained, claimed by simple faith. I felt no 
sudden, overpowering bliss, but a deep peace as of 
the conflict over and the harbor gained. 

It was certainly a turning-point in my life from 
which dates a distinct and decided change in my 
experience. I returned to school a different indi- 
vidual. There was no more shirking of duty. I 
implicitly obeyed whatever I felt to be the orders 
of God. I bore clear and frequent testimony to the 
full salvation with which God had so wonderfully 
enriched my soul. At college (Middletown, Conn.), 
whither I soon went, 1861, I took a leading part in 
aggressive religious work and in promoting the 
highest type of spirituality. 

My steps have been forward from that day in 



REV. JAMES MUDGE, B.D. 87 

August, i860, to this. Each year, without excep- 
tion, has been an improvement on its predecessors. 
There has never been anything that could be called 
a period of lapse or backsliding. Nevertheless, 
after a time, both while in college and subsequently, 
I gradually became aware that the work performed 
upon me at the second blessing above described 
was not so deep and thorough as I had supposed. 
I was conscious of feelings which looked so sus- 
piciously like ambition, envy, jealousy, impatience, 
pride, discontent, and selfishness that I could not 
feel perfectly at ease about the matter. The theory 
in which I had been trained taught that all these 
things had been entirely removed at the aforesaid 
second blessing, and that what I felt now were only 
infirmities and temptations, I tried to think them 
so, but when I was most candid and honest with 
myself the explanation failed to fully satisfy me. 
In short, I grew more and more convinced as the 
years went on, that in my case at least (and it seemed 
to me also in the case of nearly if not quite all 
others I met), after the second blessing there was 
need of further consecrations from time to time, 
deepening, extending, and perfecting the work. In 
other words, I felt and saw that the sanctification 
wrought at conversion and at the second blessing 
was in both cases entire up to the light then given, 
and no further. Perfect light was not given either 
at one time or at the other, and hence as the light 



88 FORTY WITNESSES. 

subsequently increased a subsequent corresponding 
work in the heart remained to be done. 

It is on this line that my experience has steadily 
and gloriously progressed for the last twenty years. 
There has been no year when it has not gone for- 
ward, but there have been some years of unusually 
marked advance, some seasons of very rich revela- 
tions of God's presence and power. One such year 
was that in which I went as a missionary to India, 
1873, laying upon the altar all the fond ambitious 
dreams and hopes of life, all the delights of home 
and friends and native land, in a far more thorough 
way than ever before ; a way not possible to me 
before, because the actual pinch and stress of the 
practical test had not previously been brought 
within my reach. Another such season came during 
my last full year in India, 1882," when, owing to 
some very bitter trials, a fuller disclosure was made 
to me than ever before as to some remains of the 
self-life needing further attention. Sunday, July 9, 
1882, alone in my room at Shahjahanpore, God gave 
me such a baptism of love as I shall never forget to 
all eternity. The availableness of God and the lov- 
ableness of man were manifested to me in a way 
indescribable, and the effect upon my life ever since 
has been very marked. During the past six months 
there has been almost as wonderful a development 
of faith as there was of love five years ago. Unseen 
things are now far more real than ever before. 



REV. JAMES MUDGE, B.D. 89 

There is an intensity and fullness of spiritual life 
before unknown, a settling down more thoroughly 
into Christ and a putting him on more completely; 
a greater oneness of will with God and a more ex- 
act conformity to his image as well as more sim- 
plicity and more humility. If I am asked whether 
I consider that all these graces are now perfected 
in me, and that the self-life is absolutely dead, no 
minutest trace or smallest particle of it any more 
visible to the all-penetrating gaze of the great 
Searcher of hearts, I reply, I cannot tell. I have 
thought so at various times. But when keener 
tests were brought to bear I found reason to believe 
that a little of self still lingered, calling for further 
purification. Thus it may be now. I know that 
to me but one thing seems desirable or valuable in 
heaven or earth, and that is the WILL OF God. 
And every thing which comes to me I welcome as 
God's will for me. So far as I am any way con- 
scious, my whole being, without the slightest reser- 
vation or hesitation, goes out after him and abides 
in him. Loving only what God loves, and willing 
only what God wills, I find no room for disappoint- 
ment, but only for delight and thanksgiving in all 
he sends me. This is surely the land of Beulah, if 
not something more. It is, indeed, heaven begun 
below. " For to. me to live is Christ. " 

JAMES MUDGE. 
East Pepperell, Mass., April 5, 1887. 



90 FORTY WITNESSES. 



X. 

FRANCES. E. WILLARD. 

(METHODIST.) 

T WAS lying on my bed in my home at Evanston, 
J? Illinois, in the crisis of typhoid fever. It was 
one night in June, 1859. The doctor had said that 
the crisis would soon arrive, and I had overheard 
his words. Mother was watching in the next room. 
My whole soul was intent, as two voices seemed to 
speak within me, one of them saying, " My child, 
give me thy heart. I called thee long by joy, I 
call thee now by chastisement ; but I have called 
thee always and only because I love thee with an 
everlasting love." 

The other said, " Surely you who are so resolute 
and strong will not break down now because of 
physical feebleness. You are a reasoner, and never 
yet were you convinced of the reasonableness of 
Christianity. Hold out now and you will feel 
when you get well just as you used to feel." 

One presence was to me warm, sunny, safe, with 
an impression as of snowy wings ; the other cold, 
dismal, dark, with the flutter of a bat. The con- 
troversy did not seem brief; in my weakness such 



FRANCES E. WILLARD. 9 1 

a strain would doubtless appear longer than it 
really was. Solemnly, definitely, and with my whole 
heart I said, not in spoken words, but in the deeper 
language of consciousness, 

" If God lets me get well I'll try to be a Chris- 
tian girl." I was then nineteen years old. But 
this resolve did not bring peace. 

" You must at once declare this resolution," 
said the inward voice. 

Strange as it seems, and complete as had always 
been my frankness toward my dear mother, far 
beyond what is usual even between mother and 
child, it cost me a greater humbling of my pride to 
tell her than the resolution had cost of self-surren- 
der, or than any other utterance of my whole life 
has involved. After a hard battle, in which I lifted 
up my soul to God for strength, I faintly called her 
from the next room, and said, 

" Mother, I wish to tell you that if God lets me 
get well I'll try to be a Christian girl." 

She took my hand, knelt beside my bed, and 
wept and prayed. I then turned my face to the 
wall and sweetly slept. . . . That winter we had 
revival services in the old Methodist church at 
Evanston. Dr. (now Bishop) Foster was president 
of the university, and his sermons, with those of 
Drs. Dempster, Bannister, and others, deeply 
stirred my heart. I had convalesced slowly and 
been out of town, so these meetings seemed my 



92 FORTY WITNESSES. 

first public opportunity of declaring my new alle- 
giance. The very first invitation to go forward, 
kneel at the altar and be prayed for, was heeded. 
Waiting for no one, counseling with no one, I went 
alone along the aisle with my heart beating so 
loudly I thought that I could see as well as hear it 
beat as I moved forward. One of the most timid, 
shrinking, sensitive natures, what it meant to me 
to go forward thus, with my student friends gazing 
upon me, can never be told. I had been known as 
" skeptical," and prayers (of which I then spoke 
lightly) had^been asked for me in the church the 
year before. For fourteen nights in succession I 
thus knelt at the altar, expecting some utter trans- 
formation — some slice of heaven to be placed in my 
inmost heart, as I have seen the box of valuables 
placed in the corner-stone of a building and firmly 
set, plastered over and fixed in its place forever. This 
was what I had determined must be done, and was 
loath to give it up. I prayed and agonized, but this 
did not occur. 

One night when I returned to my room baffled, 
weary and discouraged, and knelt beside my bed, it 
came to me quietly that this was not the way ; that 
my " conversion," my " turning about," my religious 
experience {re-li-gio, to bind again), had reached its 
crisis on that summer night when I said " yes " to 
God. A quiet certitude of this pervaded my con- 
sciousness, and the next night I told the public con- 



FRANCES E. WILLARD. 93 

gregation so, gave my name to the church as a 
probationer, and after holding this relation for a 
year — waiting for my sister Mary, who joined later, 
to pass her six months* probation — I was baptized 
and joined the church " in full connection. " Mean- 
while I had regularly led, since that memorable June, 
a prayerful life — which I had not done for some 
months previous to that time ; studied my Bible, 
and, as I believe, evinced by my daily life that I was 
taking counsel of the heavenly powers. Prayer- 
meeting, class-meeting (in which Rev. Dr. Hemen- 
way was my beloved leader), and church services 
were most pleasant to me, and I became an active 
Christian worker, seeking to lead others to Christ. 
For I had learned to think of and to believe in God 
in terms of Jesus Christ. This had always been my 
difficulty, as I believe it is that of so many. By 
nature all spiritually-disposed people (and with the 
exception of about six months of my life I was 
always strongly that) are Unitarians, and my chief 
mental difficulty has always been, and is to-day, 
after all these years, to adjust myself to the idea 
of three in one and one in three. But, while I 
will not judge others, there is for me no final rest, 
except as I translate the concept of God into the 
nomenclature and personality of the New Testa- 
ment. What Paul says of Christ is what I say; the 
love John felt it is my dearest wish to cherish. 
Six years passed by, during which I grew to 



94 FORTY WITNESSES. 

love more and more the house of God and the fel- 
lowship of the blessed Christian people who were 
my brothers and sisters in the church. The first 
bereavement of my life came to me three years after 
I became a Christian, in the loss of my only sister, 
Mary, whose life-long companionship had been a 
living epistle to me, of conscientiousness and spirit- 
uality. In her death she talked of Christ as "one 
who held her by the hand," and she left us with a 
smile fresh from the upper glory. A great spiritual 
uplift came to me then, and her last message, " Sis- 
ter, I want you to tell every body to be good," was 
like a perfume and a prophecy within my soul. 
This was in 1862. In 1866 Mrs. Bishop Hamline 
came to our village and we were closely associated 
in the work of the " American Methodist Ladies' 
Centennial Association " that built Heck Hall. 
This saintly woman placed in my hands the Life 
of Hester Ann Rogers ; Life of Carvosso ; Life of 
Mrs. Fletcher ; Wesley's Sermons on Christian Per- 
fection^ and Mrs. Palmer's Guide to Holiness, I 
had never seen any of these books before, but had 
read Peck's Central Ldea of Christianity, and been 
greatly interested in it. I had also heard saintly 
testimonies in prayer-meeting, and, in a general 
way, believed in the doctrine of holiness. But my 
reading of these books, my talks and prayers with 
Mrs. Hamline, that modern Mrs. Fletcher, deeply im- 
pressed me. I began to desire and pray for holiness 



FRANCES E. WILLARD. 95 

of heart. Soon after this, Dr. and Mrs. Phebe Palmer 
came to Evanston as guests of Mrs. Hamline, and 
for weeks they held meetings in our church. This 
was in the winter of 1866; the precise date I can- 
not give. One evening, early in their meetings, 
when Mrs. Palmer had spoken with marvelous clear- 
ness and power, and at the close those desirous of 
entering into the higher Christian life had been asked 
to kneel at the altar, another crisis came to me. It 
was not so tremendous as the first, but it was one 
that deeply left its impress on my spirit. My 
dear father and a friend, whom we all loved and 
honored, sat between me and the aisle — both 
Christian men and greatly reverenced by me. My 
mother sat beyond me. None of them moved. At 
last I turned to my mother (who was converted and 
joined the church when she was only twelve years 
old) and whispered, " Will you go with me to the 
altar?" She did not hesitate a minute, and the 
two gentlemen moved out of the pew to let us pass, 
but did not go themselves.* Kneeling in utter 
self-abandonment I consecrated myself anew to 
God. 

My chief besetments were, as I thought, a specu- 
lative mind, a hasty temper, a too ready tongue, and a 
purpose to be a celebrated person. But in that hour 



*A little later my father did publicly ask prayers, though an officer in the 
church and a Christian from early manhood. His remarkable experience and 
triumphant death in 1868 I have described in The Guide to Holiness. 



g6 FORTY WITNESSES. 

of sincere self-examination I felt humiliated to find 
that the simple bits of jewelry I wore, gold buttons, 
rings and pin, all of them plain and "quiet" in 
their style, came up to me as the separating causes 
between my spirit and my Saviour. All this seemed 
so unworthy of that sacre'd hour that I thought at 
first it was a mere temptation. But the sense of it 
remained so strong that I unconditionally yielded 
my pretty little jewels, and great peace came to my 
soul. I cannot describe the deep welling up of 
joy that gradually possessed me. I was utterly free 
from care. I was blithe as a bird that is good for 
nothing except to sing. I did not ask myself" Is 
this my duty?" but just intuitively knew what I 
was called upon to do. The conscious, emotional 
presence of Christ through the Holy Spirit held 
me. I ran about upon his errands " just for love." 
Life was a halcyon day. All my friends knew and 
noticed the change, and I would not like to write 
down the lovely things some of them said to me ; 
but they did me no harm, for I was shut in with the 
Lord. And yet, just then, there came, all unintended 
and unlooked for, an experience of what I did not 
then call sin, which I now believe to have been 
wrong. My own realization of it was, however, so 
imperfect that it did not mar my loyalty to Christ.. 
In this holy, happy state, I engaged to go to Lima, 
New York, and become preceptress of Genesee 
Wesley an Seminary. Just before leaving, my hon- 



FRANCES E. WILLARD. 97 

ored friend Dr. , who was visiting Governor 

Evans, said to me one evening, 

14 Sister Frank, there is a strange state of things 
at Lima. The Free Methodists have done great 
harm in Western New York by their excesses in 
the doctrine and experience of holiness. You know 
I believe thoroughly in and profess it, but just now 
our Church has suffered so much from the ' Naza- 
rites,' as they are called, that I fear if you speak and 
act as zealously at Lima in this cause as you do 
here it may make trouble. Hold to the expe- 
rience, but be very careful in statement. " 

So I went to Lima with these thoughts, and there 
quite soon, in a prayer-meeting in the old seminary 
chapel — my good friend, Prof. , whose subse- 
quent experience has been such a blessed heritage 
to Christians, replied to a student who rose to in- 
quire about holiness, that it u was a subject we did 
not mention here." 

Young and docile-minded as I was, and revering 
those two great and true men, I " kept still " until 
I soon found I had nothing in particular to keep 
still about ! The experience left me. But I think 
my pupils of that year will bear me witness that for 
their conversion and spiritual upbuilding I was con- 
stantly at work. 

Since then I have sat at the feet of every teacher 
of holiness whom I could reach ; have read their 

books and compared their views. I love and rev- 

7 



98 FORTY WITNESSES. 

erence and am greatly drawn toward all, and never 
feel out of harmony with their spirit. Wonderful 
uplifts come to me as I pass on — clearer views of 
the life of God in the soul of man. Indeed, it is the 
only life] and all my being sets toward it as the 
rivers toward the sea. Celestial things grow dearer 
to me ; the love of Christ is steadfast in my soul ; 
the habitudes of a disciple sit more easily upon 
me ; tenderness toward humanity and the lower 
orders of being increases with the years. In the 
temperance, labor and woman questions I see the 
stirring of Christ's heart ; in the comradeship of 
Christian work my spirit takes delight, and prayer 
has become my atmosphere. But that sweet per- 
vasiveness, that heaven in the soul, of which I came 
to know in Mrs. Palmer's meeting, I do not feel. 

I am afraid I love too well the good words of the 
good concerning what J do ; that I have not the con- 
trol of tongue and temper that I ought to have, 
and that I do not answer to a good conscience in 
the matter of taking sufficient physical exercise. 
But God knows that I constantly lift up my heart for 
conquest over them all, and my life is calm and 
peaceful. 

Just as frankly as I " think them over M have I 
here written down the outline phenomena of my 
spiritual life, hoping that it may do good and not 
evil to those who read. „ 

I am a strictly loyal and orthodox Methodist, 



FRANCES E. WILLARD. 99 

but I find great good in all religions and in the 
writings of those lofty and beautiful moralists who 
are building better than they know, and all of whose 
precepts blossom from the rich soil of the New 
Testament. No word of faith in God or love 
toward man is alien to my sympathy. The classic 
ethics of Marcus Aurelius are dear to me, and 
I have carried in my traveling outfit not only 
a Kempis, but Epictetus and Plato. The mysticism 
of Fenelon and Guyon, the sermons of Henry 
Drummond and Beecher, the lofty precepts of Ralph 
Waldo Emerson, all help me up and onward. I am 
an eclectic in religious reading, friendship, and in- 
spiration. My wide relationships and constant jour- 
neyings would have made me so had I not the nat- 
ural hospitality of mind that leads to this estate. 
But, like the bee that gathers from many fragrant 
gardens but flies home with his varied gains to the 
same friendly and familiar hive, so I fly home to 
the sweetness and sanctity of the old faith that has 
been my shelter and solace so long. 

" Lord Jesus, receive my spirit/' is the deepest 
voice out of my soul. Receive it every instant, 
voluntarily given back to thyself, and receive it in 
the hour when I drop this earthly mantle, that I 
wear to-day, and pass onward to the world invisible 
but doubtless not far off. 

FRANCES E. WILLARD. 

Evanston, III., May 20, 1887. 



IOO FORTY WITNESSES. 



XI. 

REV. G. D. WATSON, D.D. 

(METHODIST.) 

T WAS born in Accomac County, Virginia, March 
J& 26, 1845. My father and mother, grandfather 
and grandmother, were Methodists. I was raised 
up in family prayer, attended Sabbath-school, and 
went through many revivals of religion. I suppose 
I was the black sheep of the flock ; the worst boy 
of the whole six. I was exceedingly passionate, 
self-willed, imperious and contrary. 

My earliest convictions were when I was five or 
six years old. One night father and mother went 
to church and left us children alone, the eldest being 
twelve or thirteen years of age. We sang " Rock 
of Ages," and all got under conviction. I prayed 
and cried, but did not know what ailed me. At 
that early age I was called to preach. When I was 
twelve or thirteen I sought religion, and after that 
was at the altar at every revival ; but my will was 
not thoroughly broken down. 

I was converted in the Southern army, near Rich- 
mond, Virginia, August 12, 1863. When I was con- 
verted it was a new creation. I read the New Test- 
ament through twice that year. I began to hold 
prayer-meetings among the young men. My old 



REV. G. I). WATSON, D.D. 10 1 

companions would meet me and knock my Bible 
out of my hand and call me names. I had not 
been saved a month until I found there was inbred 
sin in my heart. I had never heard of holiness. If 
some one had known how to lead me I think I 
would have obtained the blessing then. 

I went to the Biblical Institute at Concord, New 
Hampshire, where I acquired a knowledge of the 
rudiments of Hebrew, Greek, and theology. 

I joined the Philadelphia Conference in 1868. I 
went to the National Camp-meeting at Oakington 
in 1869, and there first heard a sermon on entire 
sanctification. I went to the altar seeking it, led 
there through the influence of Alfred Cookman, who 
was then a member of my Conference. I received a 
great blessing, felt great tranquillity, and called it 
perfect love. I went back and testified to holiness. 

My presiding elder opposed the doctrine and rid- 
iculed me for preaching in advance of my elders, 
and so did others ; and under the pressure I did not 
testify as often as I should. I did not preach 
against it ; but I did not stand up for the doctrine, 
and soon got back into my old state. I then de- 
scended from a restful Christianity to a toilsome 
Christianity, and also began using tobacco again. I 
had hours of communion with God, but they were 
unsteady ; and I had a great deal of soul twilight. 
I loved to preach ; enjoyed a revival ; felt much en- 
thusiasm in all the interests of my church ; felt at 



102 FORTY WITNESSES. 

home in Christian society, and was often thrilled 
with the harmony and grandeur of Bible truth. I 
went into science and philosophy. For four or 
five years I ate the strongest intellectual food that 
the Church could furnish me. But I was starving 
my heart by trying to feed my brain. All this time 
I was trying to seek God. I would break down and 
cry over my condition. God blessed my labors, and 
souls were converted. But I was having a terrible 
struggle with myself. I felt my whole life to be one 
unending will struggle. I suffered more than tongue 
can tell from melancholy. An unkind or unfavor- 
able criticism, or an apparent neglect, would often 
hurl my spirits into deepest gloom. I grew tired 
of living in the public eye ; tired of routine work ; 
but most tired of myself. My wife was sick, and I 
could not bear sickness. I had a great deal of 
trouble that others did not see was trouble, and yet 
sorely tried me. 

In October, 1876, I began to seek holiness again. 
I was now filled with all sorts of notions. I said, I 
will grow into it. Then I took up the repression 
theory, then the Zinzendorf theory. I was like a 
sailor, first setting his sails one way, then another. 

One cannot always tell by the way a man talks 
what he thinks. Three weeks before I was sancti- 
fied I said in a preachers' meeting, "When God con- 
verts a soul he makes it as pure as it ever will be," 
and at the same time I was seeking holiness. 



REV. G. D. WATSON, D.D. IO3 

About this time a local preacher came and said 
to me : " Would you object to having a few holiness 
people from Cincinnati come up and hold a three- 
days' holiness- meeting ? " I told him I should be 
very glad to have them come. On the 1st day of 
December, 1876, the holiness-meeting began. That 
night, after my wife had retired, I prayed for an 
hour, as was my custom. Sometimes the next day 
I would get mad, and my wife would say, " I am 
ashamed of you. I am afraid you have not a bit of 
religion, and you preaching as you do/' I felt 
ashamed, and yet I would sometimes defend myself, 
and then go away and pray and cry over it. But 
that Friday night I was teachable as I lay on the 
edge of the bed, with my hand under my cheek and 
my face toward the door so as not to disturb any 
one. Then the Lord began to talk to me. " Will 
you do all for my glory?" " Yes, Lord." " Sup- 
pose your wife will not believe and accept it, will 
you receive it?" "Yes, Lord." "Will you con- 
sent for me to make your family sick ; your wife 
sick ? " " Yes, Lord ; give me the blessing." "Will 
you let me take your health in my hand — give you 
bronchitis or consumption ?" " Yes, Lord." "Any 
time I send for you, will you come?" "Yes, Lord. 
Any time you want me to die, I will consent to go." 
" Will you consent to leave those large appoint- 
ments you have been having? Will you consent to 
take a poor appointment for me ? " " Yes, Lord, I 



104 FORTY WITNESSES. 

will take the poorest appointment in Indiana if it 
is thy will." (And there were some poor ones.) 
" Suppose I want you to go and preach among the 
Freedmen, will you go?" I said, " Yes, Lord, if 
it is thy will." " Will you give up your tobacco, 
that your body may be my clean temple? " I had 
tried several times to give it up, but would go back 
to it again. I said, " Yes, Lord, I will give it up. I 
will do any thing. Give me the blessing." When 
I got all through I dropped to sleep. I do not 
know how it was, but when I waked up next morn- 
ing I found the appetite for tobacco was gone. I 
never have taken back that consecration. 

The following Monday, December 4, at noon, 
I went into my study and began reading the Script- 
ures, with the first chapter of First Peter : " Peter, 
an Apostle of Jesus Christ. . . . Elect according to 
the pre-knowledge of God the Father through sanc- 
tification of the Spirit." I stopped. " There," 
said I, " that is sanctification." " Whom having 
not seen ye love." " I do love thee, and I know 
thou lovest me." " In whom, though now ye see 
him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeak- 
able and full of glory." As I uttered these words 
God let loose a Niagara of salvation in my soul. I 
walked back and forth shouting, Glory to God ! 
After a time that subsided into a calm. 

My next appointment was where the church was 
very worldly. Still there were some lowly ones, as 



RE.V. G. D. WATSON, D.D. IC>5 

there are in all churches. The Lord saved some 
there; but I had a terrible time. I got rash and said 
harsh things. I would say things that took the skin 
off. Instead of encouraging and strengthening the 
weak I would strike hard blows. Several times I 
lost the witness of holiness and would have to fly 
back to the fountain. Sometimes I acted wrong 
with my wife. I tried to hurry her along and have 
her get the experience as I did. It was not her na- 
ture, and it could not be expected she would get it 
as I did. Sometimes, perhaps, I would say things 
to try to urge her along too fast ; then I would see 
I had done wrong and ask her pardon. Then I 
would go to the Lord and say, " Put me in the 
fountain." 

I went to another place, and began urging men 
too fast. An old man, the one who led Bishop 
Hamline into sanctification, came to me and put 
his arms around me and said, " You are preaching 
holiness in the wrong way." About that time I had 
a sort of vision. I thought I saw a large flock of 
sheep. Some were scratched with thorns, some 
with the wool off; others had horns ; then there were 
lambs. I was walking around among the sheep 
with a club trying to keep them right. I saw I was 
wrong. This was three years after I had been 
cleansed. 

Then I was in a hurry. I wanted to be as perfect 
as Paul in all things, right away. 



106 FORTY WITNESSES. 

The Lord has since melted me down and softened 
my heart. I love all God's people. The devil has 
tried, on one side, to make me too tame. I had been 
too radical, and when I began to be too conservative 
the Lord brought me back. I was like a pendulum 
— first swinging too far this way, and then the Lord 

would bring me back. 

And now, after suffering many defeats, learning 
many lessons in this Canaan of Perfect Love, I praise 
God for the trials of my faith and for his marvelous 
keeping power. I have learned that I must be an 
uncompromising, unwavering witness to the cleans- 
ing power of Christ ; that I must not make an idol 
of holiness or holy people ; that I must not lean 
upon my emotions, but must walk by faith, and 
sometimes in seasons of darkness ; that Satan tempts 
and tries me more directly and boldly than ever be- 
fore ; that I must often be dead to things and plans 
that are in themselves innocent ; must sow and reap, 
or sow and let others reap. My heart breaks down 
under a delicious burden of humble and adoring 
praise to the wonderful Jesus. I have no will of my 
own. My will is the will of my Father. A sense 
of utter nothingness is growing upon me, together 
with an increasing sense of the merit of Jesus. 

G. D. W.ATSON. 
Windsor, Fla., March 12, 1887. 



REV. B. F. CRARY, D.D. 107 



XII. 

REV. B. F. CRARY, D.D. 

(METHODIST.) 

T WAS born in Jennings County, Indiana, Decem- 
<£) ber 12, 1821, and was converted to God in Jan- 
uary, 1839, while at school at Pleasant Hill, Ohio. 
The revival was under a most devoted Presbyte- 
rian minister. My conversion was clear, and my 
peace with God constant and wonderful for months. 
I was admitted to the Indiana Conference in the 
fall of 1845, an d had been for three years before 
that under a strong impression that I ought to 
preach. I had most of the time a consciousness of 
pardoned sin and fellowship with God, but felt at 
times great depression of spirits and doubt about 
my duty. 

I did not readily yield to my conviction that 
I ought to preach, but instead pursued my own 
chosen path and studied law, and was admitted 
to practice. I always felt a degree of happiness 
in talking to others about religious matters, and 
was active in Christian work. In the summer of 
1845 I yielded so far to the voice of the Spirit as 
to submit my case to the will of the Church, intend- 
ing to take the decision of the Conference as a final 



108 FORTY WITNESSES. 

providential direction. I was admitted, and sent 
to a large circuit. 

My conversion had been instantaneous, and about 
midnight, and the joy of it kept me up all night. 
So I never doubted that, but had times of dense 
darkness through which I fought with desperation, 
holding to the fact of my regeneration and to 
God's promise. In preaching I had times of great 
triumph, and then again was overwhelmed with 
confusion bordering on despair. It seemed as 
though I was left to myself, and my weakness was 
unaccountable and my doubts very distressing. 

In 1847 I rea d with great care The Life of John 
Fletcher, and also his treatise on Christian Perfec- 
tion. I read them on horseback, studying, praying, 
and often weeping over them and over mv OAvn 
want of such experiences. In 1849, at a revival 
meeting, in the month of July, while many souls 
were seeking Christ and I was profoundly interested 
and affected in talking with them, and was very 
happy in my own soul, I was led into a faith and 
an expereience I never had before. 

While kneeling at the " mourners' bench " and 
directing a poor sinner how to trust God, a devoted 
sister, who knew my own convictions and experi- 
ence, and who enjoyed perfect love herself, said to 
me very quietly, " Brother Crary, you had better try 
that yourself, and trust God for full salvation/' I 
said then and there, " I will ; I do ; bless the Lord! " 



REV. B. F. CRARY, D.D. IO9 

This meeting was near Bedford, Lawrence 
County, Indiana. I had after that a constant 
experience of the love of God in my soul, and 
never afterward went back so far that I fell into 
the doubts and depressions which before that gave 
me so much trouble. It w r as a quiet, subdued, con- 
stant peace and joy. I had afterward a time of long 
and fearful trials, sickness, sorrow and death in my 
family, stroke after stroke, until a shivering dread 
of disease and death came over me. I did not fear 
for myself, but for my remaining children and 
friends. 

I then learned the meaning of " Thy will be done," 
and finally could say it and feel it. Before that I 
thought I could and would do any thing for 
Christ ; now I learned to suffer and bear it patiently. 
That was another great victory, and I rejoiced and 
was glad, and sang and triumphed. My faith 
became fixed and I took to myself God's promises. 
Then I entered into another state of temptation 
from most unfortunate financial troubles. They 
were small, but no less grievous. I never lost faith 
in God nor gave up my trust in any way, but was 
helpless, not, as I believed, from my own fault, and 
I had to bear a most cruel weight of suspicion and 
sometimes harsh accusations. I paid, month by 
month, debts that oppressed me, and grieved in 
silence and alone. This I had to bear through 
weary years. On a small salary I contrived to save 



IIO FORTY WITNESSES. 

some and pay what I could. I dared not go in 
debt any more nor borrow any thing. During this 
time I could not explain, and I grew naturally cau- 
tious about saying much concerning, my Christian 
experience ; but I never denied God nor lost my 
faith. 

Intimate friends blamed me sometimes for being 
so troubled over this matter. I found myself help- 
less and broken over this most unfortunate affair. 
I believe I had friends who could and would have 
helped me, but I did not ask them nor tell them. 
But now, having done what I could alone, and hav- 
ing left all with God, still hoping, working, and 
trusting, I find that my faith has grown into full 
assurance, and my peace flows like a river. Good- 
ness and mercy fill up the days and nights, and my 
soul often cries out, " God is good ! " I never mis- 
took regeneration for Christian perfection. Both 
experiences were clear and definite epochs in 
my life. I have always preached that the Christian 
may, and indeed must, be sanctified wholly. At this 
time, March 4, 1887, I find my faith simple and my 
peace perfect. I put myself and my family in God's 
hands with such a sweet and precious trust that 
my burden seems all cast upon the Lord. I find 
myself in the most joyful fellowship with God's 
people. My whole soul overflows with gratitude 
and praise. So I have enjoyed this gift and grace 
thirty-eight years, during which I have never lost 



REV. B. F. CRARY, D.D. Ill 

this sense of rest and peace with God, though at 
times in the midst of manifold troubles. I had 
lived, after my conversion, ten years in a state too 
fluctuating and uncertain, and had sought perfect 
love most earnestly at intervals, but did not find it 
until I fully believed and obtained the baptism of 
power through the Holy Ghost. I have never in 
the least degree lost faith in my brethren in the 
Church nor joined with those who indulged in fault- 
finding and denunciations, but have lived in peace, 
and done what I could to save souls, having the 
sweetest fellowship with all Christians. 

B. F. CRARY. 

San Francisco, Cal., March 5, 1887. 



112 FORTY WITNESSES. 



XIII. 

LUKE WOODARD. 

(FRIEND.) 

T WAS born at New Garden, Wayne County, 
<D Indiana, on March 12, 1832. My parents were 
members of the Society of Orthodox Friends ; were 
exemplary, godly people ; and hence I enjoyed the 
advantages of careful training. While I was, during 
my youth and early manhood, preserved from im- 
morality and kept a tender conscience, I was not 
converted till my twenty-fifth year. 

My awakening was sudden and very powerful. In- 
dependent of any immediate instrumentality, "an 
horror of great darkness fell upon " me at midnight. 
I trembled violently at the sight of my guilty and 
undone condition. I cried to the Lord, but, for 
want of a clear understanding of the blessed doctrine 
of justification by faith, I did not for some weeks 
get the assurance that my sins were forgiven, and 
find peace with God. But suddenly Christ revealed 
himself to me, and I was overcome with the joyous 
sense that I was accepted in him. 

I soon began to tell others what the Lord had 
done for me, and he opened the precious truths of 



LUKE WOODARD. 113 

his word to me and called me to preach his Gospel. 
u I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. " I 
never broke the covenant I made to endeavor to be 
faithful in this service, and he blessed me and en- 
larged my gift, which, in due time, was indorsed by 
the Church ; and I had some seals to my ministry. 

Some years after I began to preach, while realizing 
that I had not lost my hold on Christ or backslid- 
den, I became conscious of internal conflicts like 
that described in the 7th of Romans. I understood 
the full meaning of the words, " If I do that I 
would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that 
dwelleth in me." By a combination of providential 
occurrences I was brought to understand, in a meas- 
ure, the doctrine of entire sanctification as a result 
of the baptism with the Holy Ghost, received upon 
condition of definite consecration to God and the 
prayer of faith. Here Satan took advantage, and 
presented the fearful responsibility involved in such 
a consecration as I saw it to be, to give myself 
wholly and forever to God. 

I saw it meant more than to consecrate myself 
to his service in any particular work. It was like 
signing a blank sheet, leaving it for God to fill out 
as he chose. The devil paraded before me the pos- 
sibility that I might be called to go to Africa, and 
this I feared I would not do, and he made me be- 
lieve it was " better not to vow than to vow and 
not pay." Now my agony of soul became great. 



114 FORTY WITNESSES. 

It was like Bunyan's pilgrim's fight with Apollyon. 
I many times groaned, " O, wretched man that I 
am ! who shall deliver me from this bodv of death ?" 

At length, while engaged with some brethren in 
Michigan in holding some meetings in the autumn 
of 1871, I heard yet more definite instruction on this 
most important feature of Christian experience. 
Early in the morning of October 31 of this year, in 
the city of Adrian, as I was communing with my 
own heart upon my bed alone, I made this resolve: 
" I will go to the meeting this morning, and there, it 
may be, I will receive the longed-for baptism," when 
something seemed to whisper, " Why not now?" 
And at once I responded, u And why not now?" 
And with that I seemed to sink into the will of God. 
I hardly knew how, but O, such a flood of glory as 
covered me! My whole being seemed permeated 
with divine power and joy unspeakable. I wept 
tears of joy. That morning I made a formal con- 
secration at the family altar, and went to the meet- 
ing and testified to what God had done for my 
soul. 

The first test I had was the suggestion that when 
I returned home I should say nothing about it, or 
speak of it only in general terms and let people 
judge from my life. But I soon saw that my cov- 
enant of consecration meant to speak for God as his 
witness, and he gave me the victory. I have not 
been free from various tests and severe temptations, 



LUKE WOODARD. 115 

but the gracious Lord has been with me, and while 
there have been times of momentary wavering yet 
at no time have I lapsed entirely from this expe- 
rience, and the Lord has taught me many precious 
lessons of his truth, and blessed to my greater es- 
tablishment in holiness some very severe trials ; and 
through the exceeding riches of his grace I can now 
say the blood cleanseth and the Comforter abideth 
within my heart. Glory to the Father, Son, and 

Holy Ghost ! 

LUKE WOODARD. 

Glens P'alls, N.Y.,/une 18, 1887. 



Il6 FORTY WITNESSES. 



XIV. 

REV. JOHN PARKER. 

(METHODIST.) 

THERE were no circumstances in my early 
life especially friendly to the doctrine or ex- 
perience of entire sanctification, except that the 
Divine Spirit called me in early years to the Chris- 
tian life and made me very susceptible to religious 
influences. So that at ten years of age I had a 
fair apprehension of the nature of sin, a dread of 
God's displeasure because of it, and a strong desire 
to be guided to the knowledge of salvation. But 
mine was a home without prayer, or Bible, or godly 
influence, yet I prayed and lived in daily fear of the 
consequences of sin from childhood. 

The Wesleyan Sabbath-schools of England, to 
which I owe much of my early convictions and 
character, were supplied with the best library- 
books relating to the Christian life, and until my 
sixteenth year I read these with great avidity. 
At the age of sixteen I was thoroughly con- 
verted, after three months of diligent seeking; so 
converted as to be forever spoiled for a mixed 
life. My hunger for good books was now greatly 
increased. I read the writings of Wesley, Fletcher, 



REV. JOHN PARKER. 117 

Clark, and the biographies of early Methodism. 
I was deeply convicted for the blessing of a clean 
heart, and obtained it in six months after mv 
conversion — while reading The Life of Hester Ann 
Rogers. I did not, of course, understand the phi- 
losophy of the doctrine, or its relation to my 
needs ; but, daily beset by the most violent an- 
tagonisms to the Christian life, I felt the need of 
something which would give me greater strength 
and rest. 

At twelve years of age, while working in the cot- 
ton mill, I was severely injured, so that during the 
four following years I suffered greatly from pain 
and poverty. Out of this came the advantage to 
me of a lowly mind — a simple, confiding heart, 
ready to receive the truth and light of the Spirit. 
By severe discipline from my earliest years I had 
also obtained self-reliance, and courage to attempt 
and pursue to the end whatever I felt to be my 
duty. Thus had God prepared me to welcome this 
self-crucifying doctrine and life of perfect love. I 
had little to give up, for my estate and prospects 
were exceedingly limited. 

But I gave myself intelligently, deliberately, for- 
ever. And my heart was open as the flower to 
welcome the light and warmth of divine love. It 
was morning at last ; the night had seemed long to 
me, for I had no happy childhood ; the light had 
come, and how I welcomed it ! I now entered 



Il8 FORTY WITNESSES. 

the Beulah-land life, without any purpose to 
experiment on the subject of full salvation by 
avowing it only while favorable and convenient. 
My consecration was, like my marriage in later 
years, for life, without drift, but with growing love. 
And after forty-six years of its experience and 
profession, and often of reproach, my purpose is 
unchanged. For with me the logic of the doctrine 
is very short, sharp and direct. Either I can be 
holy or I cannot. If I can I must, for God wills 
it. He cannot approve in me the opposite of his will. 
Fellowship with him, therefore, is impossible with- 
out obedience, for less than obedience is sin. God 
offers to make me holy through my faith in the 
atonement of Christ, and to maintain in my heart 
and life that holiness by the ministry and inreign- 
ing of the Holy Spirit. Less than glad acceptance 
of his grace is rejection, and rejection is sin. I can- 
not be a sinning child of God and heir of heaven. 
But I must be his child ; I am in great earnest to 
get to heaven. He approved in his servants of old 
their plain delaration that they sought a heavenly 
country. I love his approval more than I love the 
light of my eyes. Mine shall be a plain declara- 
tion daily that I am going to heaven. Then I 
must be holy. I can be holy. I will. I rely this 
moment on his power to make me clean, and he 
doeth it ; by faith I walk, live, and sing in liberty, 
victory and joy. 



REV. JOHN PARKER. 119 

" How did I become established ? " It is diffi- 
cult to answer this question. For nothing in my 
life of consecration supplies me with a starting- 
point for thought. As well ask the obedient and 
loving child of a wise and devoted parent, " How 
do you manage to keep from running away from 
home ? " Or the godly and devoted husband, " How 
do you keep from drift?" Each would say what I 
want to say, " I never have thought of drift." Love 
knows nothing of drift, or vacillation, or weariness, 
in its constancy. My only answer is, I saw the 
King and loved him perfectly, and with my increas- 
ing years my vision of God is enlarged ; so is my 
love. My heart was defiled, even after my thor- 
ough conversion. He promised to make me clean 
and then to put his Holy Spirit within the heart 
he had cleansed. He did it. He doeth it now. 
He keeps me satisfied, but O, so hungry. " They 
that know thy name," thy perfections, "will put 
their trust in thee." I know his name. He deigns 
to reveal himself to me every day ; and thus I am 
abased in my own eyes, but exalted in his. He 
keeps me clean and strong and free. 

It takes an all-consuming and separating love to 
settle and establish heart and mind in the fullness 
of gospel liberty and rest, and to die to unholy 
ambition for pre-eminence or popular favor. God 
could not trust me with distinction or popular 
favor or wealth. He has trusted me with his com- 



120 FORTY WITNESSES. 

munion and kept me lowly, and I am satisfied. 
The books I prefer do not suggest doubt ; I have 
enough of that without feeding it. The society I 
seek does not weaken me by dissipation. The 
unfriendliness of the average church to the subject 
gives me pain, but no fear. I have stood alone 
many, many times ; I can do so to the end. I have 
reached a place in Christian life where my own 
company is a pleasure to me, for my conscience 
attests my sincerity and the Holy Spirit attests that 
I am clean through the blood. There are forty- 
six years of this life behind me, an eternity before 
me. I am established ; He has done it. " Rooted 
and built up in him, established in the faith, abound- 
ing therein with thanksgiving/' Hallelujah ! 

JOHN PARKER. 
Hamden, Connecticut, July n, 1887. 



CAPT. R. KELSO CARTER. 121 



XV. 

CAPT. R. KELSO CARTER.* 

(METHODIST.) 

FROM the very hour of my birth, in 1849, I was 
surrounded by the best Christian influence. 
My father has stood for nearly half a century in the 
foremost rank of aggressive Christian workers in the 
city of Baltimore, and by his side I had ever the 
example of one of those sweet, gentle, patient, lov- 
ing mothers, whose presence seems always to reflect 
a little of heaven's light upon the darkness of this 
world. 

I cannot remember when I was not subject to 
deep convictions of sin and sensible of my duty 
toward God ; yet, as a school-boy, I wandered far 
from the path of truth until the age of fifteen, when, 
under the blessed influences of the cadet prayer- 
meeting in the Pennsylvania Military Academy, I 
made a profession of faith in Jesus and united with 
the Presbyterian Church — my parents' denomina- 
tion. 

I was happy, but I made the common mistake of 
our day ; I did not forsake my old companions and 
habits, and the inevitable result followed. For four- 

* For twenty years of the Pennsylvania Military Academy. 



122 FORTY WITNESSES. 

teen years I lived the up-and-down experience so 
bitterly familiar to the average church member. I 
attended church, went to the prayer-meeting, took 
part in it quite frequently, spoke on religious sub- 
jects and on temperance, always from a gospel 
stand-point ; and unquestionably I grew in grace to 
some extent. I never enjoyed myself so much as 
when I was working in Mr. Moody's inquiry-meet- 
ings in Baltimore, in 1878-9; and yet, even up to 
that time, I was continually slipping and falling be- 
fore tempers or desires, in some form or other. 
Confession and prayer brought forgiveness, and I 
was very sure that I was God's child, so that when 
asked, " Are you a Christian ? " I never thought of 
answering in any other way than, " Yes, thank the 
Lord." 

But all this time there was a tremendous convic- 
tion of a great inward need, a cry from my soul that 
God would take away from my heart these internal 
desires toward evil. I had never read a line on the 
subject ; had never heard a sermon on the Holy 
Ghost or upon the subject of sanctification ; had 
never been to a camp-meeting nor entered a Meth- 
odist church more than three times. But my soul 
cried out for complete deliverance, and God's tin- 
limited promises stood out like stars above me. 
But I was not ready and willing to pay the price. 

In the summer of 1879, m y heart, which had been 
chronically diseased for seven years, resisting the 



CAPT. R. KELSO CARTER. 1 23 

remedies of the ablest physicians, and refusing to 
grow better even after three years spent in sheep- 
ranching among the mountains of California, sud- 
denly broke down so seriously as to bring me to the 
very verge of the grave. I had heard a little of the 
"prayer of faith " for healing, but I felt persuaded 
that it would border upon blasphemy to ask God 
for a strength which I did not propose to use wholly 
for him ; and hence it was that this desire for 
health only increased the sense of the necessity for 
a great and entire consecration. 

Kneeling alone in my mother's room in Balti- 
more, in the month of July, I made a consecration 
that covered every thing. I have never been com- 
pelled to renew it, for it included all. To die at 
once — a young man ; to live and suffer ; to live and 
recover ; to be, to do, to suffer any thing for Jesus — 
this was my consecration. All doubtful things were 
swept aside and a large margin left on God's side. 
I knew in my soul that I meant every word ; and 
so I have never had any doubts about it since. A 
certain sense of peace and quietness gradually came 
over me. I never had any sudden overpowering 
manifestation ; and I found the whole Bible won- 
derfully open to my vision and marvelously satisfy- 
ing to my soul, as it had never been before. I 
seemed to live in a constant prayer ; and in fact I 
have lived this way nearly all the time that has 
elapsed since then. 



124 FORTY WITNESSES. 

Feeling now all the more impressed, with God's 
healing promises I sought to find Jehovah Rophi ; 
and, in order to obey the word like a little child, I 
concluded to go to Boston and ask prayer and 
anointing at the hands of Dr. Cullis. I was terribly 
weak, but I went. All this experience has been 
written and published at length elsewhere, and I 
will only add that I returned in three days, walking 
by faith, and not by feeling, resumed my college 
work in September, and at once engaged in all kinds 
of religious work. I was healed by the power of 
God alone. Praise the Lord ! 

Within two months I united with the Methodist 
Church, owing to certain providential circumstances; 
and here I began to encounter the terminology 
which was exceedingly unpleasant to my ear, trained 
among the Presbyterians. But I promptly settled 
all these difficulties by declaring that I accepted all 
the terms found in Scripture, joined in all scriptural 
prayer, and aimed at every scriptural target with the 
expectation of hitting it by the infinite grace of 
God. 

Perhaps the crucial point was passed in this way: 
Undervaluing the deep peace in my soul and the 
great hunger for the word which continually pos- 
sessed me, not seeing that these were evidences of 
the Spirit's presence, I yearned and cried after some 
great manifestation. But one night, after lying in 
an agony of supplication upon my floor for hours, I 



CAPT. R. KELSO CARTER. 125 

rose up, and, lifting my hand to heaven, said, " O, 
Lord, if I never feci any more than I do now to the 
day of judgment I will believe on thy word that 
Jesus saves me now. If the children of Israel could 
shout over Jericho when not one stone in its walls 
had fallen, I can do the same." And I began say- 
ing aloud, " Jesus saves me now! Jesus saves me 
now ! " 

God, the angels, and the devils heard it. But 
my audience all understood that I meant " sanctified 
wholly ; " so the Lord got the honor of a complete 
work even from ignorant lips, and gradually the con- 
viction grew in my soul that it was really true. This 
inward conviction or persuasion I soon recognized as 
the longed-for "witness of the Spirit," and then, for 
the first time, I knew those thrills of heavenly joy 
which have been styled the " effusions of the Holy 
Ghost." 

From this point in my life a most distinct expe- 
rience began. All sense of duty- service vanished, 
and a glad love-service took its place. All those 
desperate conflicts with the will of God, which we 
are pleased to call our " crushing trials," " sore 
afflictions," resolved themselves into the dear Lord's 
wisely-chosen methods for enlarging the vessel in 
order that he might pour into it more of his grace 
and love. Growth was marvelous and perma7ient — 
a wonderful difference from the years when so much 
time was occupied in rebuilding. There was no 



126 FORTY WITNESSES. 

desert life here ; no despondency ; no cloud of un- 
belief; no sense of condemnation. The most 
marked inward leanings toward sin which had bit- 
terly cursed my Christian life were so conspicuous 
by their absence that in wonder and amazement I 
cried, " Is any thing too hard for the Lord ? " and 
was greatly established by the thought that if God 
could take away one such besetting sin could he not 
remove two ? And if two, why not all? 

Here I wish to be very clear. Let not the reader 
suppose that during these years there has been no 
occasion for self-examination or of disappointment 
at my record. All along the line I was frequently 
surprised at new discoveries. Things which had 
seemed perfectly right and proper became objects 
of inward suspicion. Something suggested, " You 
ought not to do this or to speak so ; it is not right/' 
But whenever this occurred a prompt willingness to 
turn on the most searching light was always felt ; 
and if, after a thorough examination in the light of 
the word, the thing appeared to smell of evil, it was 
always cheerfully relinquished, no inward desire to go 
counter to the will of God being experienced. In 
fact, this has always been the great test question : 
Is it the will of God ? His will, when known, is 
mine always ; not from duty, but from free, spon- 
taneous choice. Praise the Lord ! 

I have had some trouble with my body at times, 
for the body is very imperious. The necessity of 



CAPT. R. KELSO CARTER. 12? 

"keeping the body under " has been always felt. 
Let none misunderstand me here. I do not mean 
the " body of sin," or " the carnal mind." That 
was burned up, and its desires against God's will 
eradicated, by the consuming fire of the Holy Ghost 
when God wholly sanctified my soul as related 
above. But this physical body, with its various ap- 
petites and nerves, must be kept under all the time. 
Not one of these appetites nor one of these nerves 
is in any degree sinful or impure in itself. It is only 
the wrong use of these which constitutes sin and 
brings condemnation. There is not a particle of sin 
in my feeling hunger, or thirst, or the sexual appe- 
tite, for God has made them all, and his work is 
good. But there is sin in indulging any of them in 
a wrong way or in entertaining or possessing the 
real desire to so indulge them. If my nerves are 
overtaxed I must and will feel nervous; there is no 
sin in that. But I must not experience irritation 
and anger in the heart as an accompaniment, for in 
this lies sin. I may be, and am, when such emer- 
gencies arise, tempted to think of such indulgences 
or tempers ; but the temptation is not sin if the 
heart answers not again. 

This lesson was rather difficult to learn ; and while 
studying it I was at various times a little confused 
as to the exact power and shades of meaning in the 
terminology of Bible holiness ; but the blessed 
Spirit brought me through in safety ; and now I see 



128 FORTY WITNESSES. 

it as, perhaps, the most important lesson of my life 
thus far, and as the testing-ground where so many 
sanctified Christians are led astray. 

My experience is my own, and acknowledges no 
human master, and, therefore, I cannot stop in a 
certain rut, I must go farther. From the very first 
I conceived a deep, and even desperate, determi- 
nation to " follow on to know the Lord." No pen 
can emphasize these words as they were emphasized 
in my soul. Year by year passed away, and an 
almost infinite yearning for a deeper manifestation 
of my Lord filled my very being. Suffice it to say 
that at Mountain Lake Park Camp-meeting, in July, 
1885, this prayer of years was answered. I can 
hardly tell how, except that my Saviour became so 
inexpressibly real to me that all language fails to 
describe it. It has seemed these two years as 
though my friends, my wife, even myself, are less 
real to me than my adorable Saviour, my living 
Father, my blessed Comforter. After about eight 
months some small degree of this marvelous near- 
ness to Jesus seemed to me to pass away, I think 
through a slowness to follow the Spirit with refer- 
ence to a certain point. But in July, 1887, while 
again at Mountain Lake Park, the blessed Holy 
Ghost wonderfully and entirely healed me of a very 
serious attack of brain prostration resulting from 
various causes, largely unavoidable ; and with this 
restoration all seems to be regained. 



CAPT. R. KELSO CARTER. 1 29 

To-day I am a sinner saved by grace, a repentant 
rebel fully pardoned by my God, a law-breaker jus- 
tified freely by the " Judge of all the earth/' the 
offspring of evil adopted into the family of the Lord, 
a trusting believer cleansed from inbred sin by the 
blood of Jesus Christ and sanctified wholly by the 
Holy Ghost, a child of the King, healed of my dis- 
eases by the Great Physician. I am beset, yet full 
of hope ; tempted and tried most sorely, yet strong 
in the Lord ; tossed about by circumstances, yet on 
the Rock of Ages ; enduring misrepresentation and 
slander and suspicion, yet praising God for the 
victory Jesus wins over all ; daily realizing more 
and more my own nothingness and the wonderful 
ALLNESS of Jesus. Praise the Lord ! 

R. KELSO CARTER. 

Yardville, N. J., August 11, 1887. 
9 



130 FORTY WITNESSES. 



XVI. 

MARY R. DENMAN. 

(EPISCOPALIAN.) 

WHEN my pastor asked me, at the age of fifteen, 
to be confirmed, I said, " I would like to do 
so, but have not met with a change of heart." His 
answer was : " Whence did the desire to become a 
Christian originate ? Certainly it did not come from 
the Evil One." Hence he advised me to join the 
Church. I have always been glad that I followed his 
advice, for when tempted as a young lady to go into 
the gayety of the world I felt the restraint, particu- 
larly during the season of Lent. As a Church 
member, when the communion season came around, 
I must partake of the Lord's Supper, and in some 
way I always tried to prepare my heart to receive 
it. After I was married I tried hard to induce my 
husband to join the Church, as I had done, but 
we were of the world and w r orldly. There came a 
time when I realized that I did not love God with 
all my heart, as I was taught every Sunday it was 
my duty to do. I w r as simple-minded enough to go 
on my knees and ask God to teach me to love him 
with all my heart. He took me at my word and 



MARY R. DENMAN. 131 

taught me to do so. Soon after this, upon my re- 
turn to New Orleans, I thought the church mem- 
bers had changed, for they all seemed so willing 
to talk on the subject of religion. The change was 
with me. This I consider was the date of my con- 
version. I was soon tested to know if I loved God 
with all my heart. He took to himself a precious 
daughter when she was only about four months old. 
This affliction I bore cheerfully, feeling that God 
would bless it to my husband, which he did, and 
when, six years afterward, he took him to himself, 
I claimed the promises given to the widow. He has 
been true to his promise for over twenty years. I 
still had a longing in my heart for something more 
satisfying. While in this state of mind I learned 
that a number of Christian people were coming 
to our city to hold a series of meetings. They 
were called " higher-life Christians." I heard one 
minister in these meetings tell of the " Rest of Faith " 
he had in his soul. My spirit responded, " That is 
what I want ;" and, knowing that God was not a re- 
specter of persons, I believed he would give it to 
me if I would meet the conditions. I sought and 
found this grace. I delighted in this new joy, and, 
desiring to meet with Christians who enjoyed the 
same blessing, I was invited to go to a camp- 
meeting. My answer was " No ; I am not a Meth- 
odist." But the friend said, " This is not a Methodist 
camp-meeting ; it is a national one, where all denom- 



132 FORTY WITNESSES. 

inations meet." I concluded to go with my friend, 
she making all arrangements for me. I praise God 
for Sea Cliff camp-meeting. Having the great joy 
of the Saviour in my heart I did not feel the need 
of having the roots of bitterness taken out. But I 
soon saw there was something more for me, and that 
God was talking to my heart and questioning me, 
to see if my will was in subjection to his. One test 
was, "Would I establish the family altar on my re- 
turn home ? " I was in the habit of praying with 
my children, but establishing the family altar would 
involve the cross of praying before visitors, and some 
very worldly ones. I had said " yes M to this, when 
in the night came deeper questions, preparing me 
for temperance work. " Would I speak for Him 
before large congregations if my children and every 
friend on earth turned against me ? " This I could 
not answer, for I felt it would cut me off from all my 
earthly supports. Still I found it must be answered, 
or I would never know peace again. I called Sister 
Amanda Smith, the colored evangelist, who was in 
the next tent. She, being awake, put a blanket 
around her and came to my bed-side and prayed 
with me, making very clear to my mind that God 
would not ask any thing of me that he would not 
give me strength to perform. When my will was 
broken a wondrous peace came into my soul. I have 
often been asked " Has this peace remained all these 
fifteen years? and how have you kept it?" My 



MARY R. DENMAN. 1 33 

answer is, by saying " I will " to God, and then do- 
ing his bidding. Very soon I was called to work for 
him in the temperance cause. I began by being 
willing to lead in ladies' prayer-meetings. After 
seven years' constant work for the Master, when the 
women would not release me, the dear Lord did, by 
laying me by with paralysis. 

But O how wondrously He has healed me since 
in answer to prayer ! How could I let go my faith 
in the Almighty arm which did and continues to 
do so much for me? I do not say that I have been 
freed from trial or temptation. These I never ex- 
pect to be free from while in the body. But I can 
say, with St. Paul, " that with the temptation a way 
of escape " has always been made, and I have not 
lost the deep peace in my soul, I do not remember 
that I have ever felt power in myself to stand alone, 
and therefore have always looked to and expected 
my precious Saviour /to keep me. He has never 
forsaken me. There was a time for about two days 
when Satan tried to make me think I had not re- 
ceived the baptism of the Holy Ghost, because I 
had not had just such an experience as another 
dear friend. But just as soon as I got quiet before 
God, the Holy Spirit carried me back in mind to 
that night on Sea Cliff camp-ground, and I have 
never doubted since. I do not always experience 
the same joy, but it is there, down in my heart, like 
the water in the bosom of the earth waiting the 



134 FORTY WITNESSES. 

opportunity of the driven well. If I were to be 

disobedient to his loving command, and leave him, 

and look for my pleasures in other fields than he 

lays out for me, I should expect to lose my peace. 

But why should I do so, when he is my all and in 

all? 

MARY R. DENMAN. 

Newark, N. J., October 12, 1887. 



ANNA M. HAMMER. 1 35 



XVII. 

ANNA M. HAMMER. 

(EPISCOPALIAN). 

T WAS born in the town of Pottsville, Pa., in the 
jP year 1840. My father was a Quaker and my 
mother an Episcopalian, an earnest Christian 
woman, and one who early taught my young lips to 
pray and to value the word of God. At the age of 
nine years I became greatly convicted of sin. I 
cried in agony at the thought of death, but finally 
the impression wore away. I have no recollection 
of any other especial experience till I reached the 
age of fourteen, when a young man (soon to be- 
come a relative), an earnest Christian and member 
of the Episcopal Church, urged me to give my 
heart to God and join the Church. My dear mother 
mingled her prayers with his, and at that point I 
date my conversion. We removed immediately to 
the town of Wilkesbarre, Pa., and I there came 
under the pastorate of the Rev. George D. Miles, 
of blessed memory, rector of the Episcopal church, 
and a truly evangelical man. The means of grace 
under which I was brought at that time did much 
to form my Christian character and implanted in 



I36 FORTY WITNESSES. 

my heart a love for the pure and true and holy, 
which not even the claims of a fashionable, gay life, 
were able to entirely dissipate ; for I did enter into 
a life of amusement, which was a great grief to my 
dear pastor and spiritual friend. This gay life was 
not one of unmixed pleasure, for I keenly felt all 
the way through that my spiritual life was suffering 
because of it. After my marriage I gave up dancing, 
to please my husband, who strongly disapproved 
of that amusement. In 1864 my husband moved 
to Newark, N. J., and after a few years we came 
under the ministry of Rev. Dr. William R. Nichol- 
son (now Bishop Nicholson), and under his earnest, 
spiritual teachings I found my soul greatly quick- 
ened. The entire loss of fortune and the death of 
my first-born son, and also of an elder brother, all 
within a few short years, served to draw me nearer 
to the Lord, and my Christian life grew sweeter 
and deeper. There came a time, in 1874, when, 
having become a member of the Reformed Episco- 
pal Church, I attended a female prayer-meeting held 
every week in the vestry-room. Upon one occasion, 
a very rainy day, I found but one dear woman at 
the meeting, and she told me how mightily the 
Lord had blessed her soul, so that she cried out to 
him to stay his hand. I was completely captivated 
by this account. I never before had heard such an 
experience. The next day I was lying upon my 
bed resting and thinking over the wonderful story 



ANNA M. HAMMER. 1 37 

of the day before, when the thought came, "God is 
no respecter of persons ; what he has done for her 
he can and will do for me." I knelt and prayed, 
and asked for just what I wanted, and O, how God 
did pour his Holy Spirit into my soul and give such 
a love for souls and hunger for work ! I have 
always spoken of that baptism as " my anointing 
for service. " I then consecrated myself fully to 
the Lord, and especially to the temperance work. 
In this state I lived an outwardly consecrated, puri- 
fied life, having the grace given me to prevent the 
outward manifestation of anger and kindred sins, 
so that even some of my most intimate friends, 
who enjoyed the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a 
distinct second experience, thought I enjoyed the 
same blessing. I sometimes agreed with them, but 
oftener distrusted having had any such experi- 
ence. Finally a great hunger of soul came upon 
me. I knew there were in the corners of my heart 
things known only to myself and God, and I real- 
ized that nothing short of the " anointing which 
abideth " would satisfy my soul and fit me fully as 
a worker for God. In July, 1880, the first assembly 
of the Woman's Holiness Camp-meeting was held 
at Camp Tabor, New Jersey. I went there with the 
fixed intention to get all the Lord had in reserve 
for me. I was under deep conviction of soul, and 
for three days I was in an agony of tears, as one 
friend said, " dying hard." I held out on points 



138 FORTY WITNESSES. 

which now seem very ridiculous, but then they as- 
sumed proportions which appeared serious enough. 
But all this time the hunger and the aching in- 
creased till I could no longer resist the pleadings of 
the Spirit, and then came my second consecration. 
I said, " Lord, all I have or all I ever will have; all 
I am or all I ever may be ; all I know or all I ever 
may know, I put now upon the altar." I knew the 
" altar sanctified the gift," and I bound my offering 
to the " horns of the altar " and waited for the fire. 
For hours, forgetting all my prejudices, I was pros- 
trate in the straw. The meeting broke up, but 
there I remained, a few friends around awaiting 
the result. I am glad no one talked to me ; my 
soul was in quiet communion with God. Finally a 
dear minister of God came upon the ground, and, 
seeing the unusual gathering, asked what it meant. 
Some one replied, "An honest soul seeking the 
blessing," and another added, " She is an Episco- 
palian." With great heartiness he responded, 
" Well, he is the God and Father of us all." Then 
the fatherhood of God peculiarly struck me, and 
I raised my head to confirm the thought, when 
with the action the anointing came. I was shaken 
as with a violent ague ; over and over and over 
again the shock came, finally leaving me so pros- 
trated that I was helped over to the cottage, where 
I lay on the lounge for hours bathed in glory. 
From that hour my Christian life has been victory. 



ANNA M. HAMMER. 1 39 

I have grown year by year in the depth of experi- 
ence which becomes richer and deeper and sweeter 
as the years roll on. I have made mistakes, but 
they are under the blood ; I have had temptations, 
but early I learned that they were not sin unless 
yielded to,. But O, the delights of a life wholly 
given up to God ! 

I have no doubt as to my conversion, that I was 
"born again ;" that, being " dead in trespasses and 
sins," I was made " alive in God." At the time of 
my anointing by the Holy Spirit I was living a con- 
secrated life of faith and active service. My sanc- 
tification was a second actual experience, and from 
that time my life has been changed, is deeper, 
stronger, steadier, sweeter, richer. The life I have 
lived for the last seven years has been wonderfully 
free from condemnation. I have more than once 
done ignorantly that for which I sorrowed after- 
ward, but handed it immediately over to the Lord 
and felt the blood applied. Praise the Lord ! 

ANNA M. HAMMER. 

Newark, N. J., July 18, 1887. 



140 FORTY WITNESSES. 



XVIII. 

REV..B. K. PEIRCE, D.D. 

(METHODIST. 

T WAS born February 3, 18 19, in Royalton, 
J& Windsor County, Vermont. 

I was, I think, soundly converted on the Island 
of Nantucket, when a boy of about twelve years of 
age. But, not joining the Church, I lost my spirit- 
ual life and fell away from the Saviour, although I 
did not give up prayer. I was renewed in Lynn, 
Mass., in a revival in my father's church when about 
seventeen, in 1836. My evidence of the new birth 
came very gradually, but very clearly, while I was 
attempting to point the way to a seeking friend. 

Soon after this I went to Wesleyan University, 
Middletown, Conn. My collegiate course was a 
severe trial to my faith, but in the last year at 
college (1841) I began to preach, joining the New 
England Conference in 1842, and was blessed with 
seasons of revival. But, although I had no doubt 
of my previous sonship in the family of God, my 
experience did not take on a clear, positive, well- 
rounded form until after that Memorable Night 
of prayer in the second year of my ministry, 1843, 



REV. B. K. PETRCE, D.D. 141 

at Newburyport, Mass. The social meetings in my 
church were interesting; the congregations increased. 
But there began to be felt a need of deep relig- 
ious interest, and the expediency of calling in an 
evangelist was discussed. On this Sunday evening 
after service I returned to my study. I was alone. 
The family was absent. I had become greatly de- 
pressed at not seeing the spiritual outcome to my 
labors which I desired. I said, " Why need the 
church send for another minister ? Is the missing 
link in myself ?" These questions brought me to 
my knees. I saw my spiritual life to be defective. 
I had not a sufficiently clear personal apprehension 
of the whole plan of salvation to preach effectually 
to others. Inward anxiety became positive distress. 
Some more definite and pronounced era of the 
divine life must be reached. Prayer was blind at 
first, and I was in great trouble. I was shut in on 
all sides and helpless. I prayed for deliverance 
even if it cost my life, but the prison walls only 
drew closer and more fearfully around me. In the 
midst of this turbulence of emotion and purposeless 
prayer, it occurred to me, that, like the Jews, I was 
seeking a sign, something miraculous, when God had 
made a distinct promise. These words then came 
to me: " If ye, then, being evil, know how to give 
good things to your children, how much more shall 
your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to 
them that ask him." Here was the promise of a 



142 FORTY WITNESSES. 

divine Guide. Still upon my knees, in this light I 
wrote out an entire surrender of myself, body, soul 
and substance, and all pertaining to me, and sought 
to weigh every word before I solemnly signed my 
name to it. Now I said: "If we confess our sins, 
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to 
cleanse us from all unrighteousness." I grasped the 
simple, all-embracing truth as never before. In 
tearful trust I cried, 

" Lord, I am lost, but Jesus died." 

Unconscious of the passage of time, and still on 
my knees, in sweet and blissful iteration I said over 
and over again : " He forgives ; he cleanses from all 
unrighteousness ! " I hardly knew when I left the 
kneeling posture, but I found myself walking the 
room in the early morning hours, saying, " He 
cleanses from all unrighteousness!" while an inde- 
scribable calmness and peace pervaded my whole 
being. 

This baptism of the Spirit was a great inspiration 
in my pulpit and pastoral work. It illuminated the 
Holy Scriptures and enriched the daily life. It 
made the whole plan of salvation very clear and 
positive. I walked in the light and comfort of this 
great blessing for a long period, and have never lost 
a vivid conception of the process by which it was 
secured. 

While chaplain in the House of Refuge, Randall's 
Island, N. Y., somewhere about the year 1868, I 



REV. B. K. PEIRCE, D.D. 143 



came again to a remarkable hungering and thirsting 
for the cleansing of my soul and its full occupation 
by the Holy Spirit. To this end I devoted a night 
of prayer and came again into great peace and an 
absorption of divine things. I could not read any 
thing but the Bible and devout books, and literally 
continued in prayer without ceasing. In this state 
I walked for many months. Its fervor wore off 
somewhat, the absolute absorption in spiritual 
things abated, and I again took a general inter- 
est in affairs. My reading became more miscella- 
neous. I did not keep up that incessant commun- 
ion and loving fellowship with the Saviour, but I 
did not lose the hold I had gained upon the double 
office of Christ as pardoning sin and cleansing 
from all unrighteousness. I was almost unfitted for 
every thing besides at first, but it was a blessed and 
a heavenly state. I try now to live in the sight of 
it. Nothing is so sweet or dear to me as the con- 
templation of my Saviour in his person and offices, 
and I long for nothing more than to be like him in 

spirit and life. 

B. K. PEIRCE. 
Boston, Mass., March 3, 1887. 



144 FORTY WITNESSES. 



XIX. 

HANNAH WHITALL SMITH. 

(FRIEND.) 

T WAS born in Philadelphia, Pa., second month, 
£> seventh day, 1832. I was converted in Phila- 
delphia, in 1856, in my twenty-sixth year. My con- 
version was very clear and unmistakable. After 
long years of legal striving, in which I resorted in 
vain to every expedient my soul could devise for 
gaining the favor of God and the forgiveness of all 
my sins, I was taught to see my own utter helpless- 
ness in the matter, and to trust entirely and only to 
Christ to save me. I knew that* I was born again ; 
and "never from that time have I doubted this. 
Never have I had a moment's fear about my ac- 
ceptance with God, or my present possession of 
eternal life. 

As time passed on the Lord graciously led me 
into the knowledge of much truth. My guarded 
education in the Society of Friends, of which I was 
at that time a member, had already separated me 
very much from the vain fashions and amusements 
of the world, and my chief interests were all cen- 
tered around the religion of Jesus Christ, as the 



HANNAH WHITALL SMITH. 145 

only object really worthy of serious thought or at- 
tention. 

But my heart was ill at ease. That I grew in 
knowledge I could not deny; but neither could I 
deny that I did not grow in grace ; and, at the end 
of eight years of my Christian life, I was forced to 
make the sorrowful admission that I had not even 
as much power over sin as when I was first con- 
verted. In the presence of temptation, I found 
myself weakness itself. It was not my outward 
walk that caused me sorrow, though I can see now 
that that was far from what it ought to have been ; 
but it was the sins of my heart that troubled me — 
coldness, deadness, want of Christian love, intellect- 
ual apprehension of truth without any corresponding 
moral effects, roots of bitterness, want of a meek 
and quiet spirit — all those inward sins over which 
the children of God are so often forced to mourn. 

I could not but see, that, although I was not 
under law, but under grace, still sin had more or 
less dominion over me, and I felt that I did not 
come up to the Bible standard. The Christian life 
contemplated there was a life of victory and tri- 
umph ; my life was one of failure and defeat. The 
commands there given to be holy, to be conformed 
to the image of Christ, to be blameless and harm- 
less, the sons of God without rebuke, seemed almost 
a mockery to me, so utterly impossible did I find it 

to attain to any such standard ; for I made very 
10 



146 FORTY WITNESSES. 

earnest efforts after it. At times I went through 
agonies of conflict in my efforts to bring about a 
different state of things. I resolved, I prayed, I 
wrestled, I strove ; I lashed myself up into the be- 
lief that all I held most dear in life could continue 
to be mine only as I attained to more faithfulness 
and devotedness of walk. When sickness came upon 
any whom I loved, many were the vows recorded 
in the depths of my soul that, if God would but 
spare their lives, I would henceforth serve him with 
all my heart. But all was in vain, and, it seemed, 
even worse than vain. " When I would do good, evil 
was present with me ; " and I could see no hope of 
deliverance except in death, which, by destroying 
the " body of sin " to which I was chained, would 
thus break the yoke of my bondage. 

At times some new discovery of the truth of God 
in the Bible would seem for awhile to carry me 
above temptation, and to make me more than con- 
queror. And my heart would rejoice at the thought 
that now at last I had found the secret of living, 
and that henceforth my continued defeats would be 
turned into continued victories. But after a while, 
as the aspect of truth, in which I had been rejoic- 
ing, became familiar to me, I found to my bitter 
sorrow that it seemed to lose its power, and I 
was left as helpless as ever, only under deeper 
condemnation, because of the increased responsi- 
bilities of increased knowledge. 



HANNAH WHITALL SMITH. 1 47 

There was also another thing that troubled me. 
I had been taught, and I found in the Bible, that 
it was my privilege to know the indwelling of the 
Holy Spirit as a leader and guide to my soul, 
and I believed that he was indeed indwelling in 
me, but I felt that experimentally I knew very 
little about his teaching, and had no actual con- 
sciousness of his presence. That it would be an 
inestimable blessing thus to know him, I realized 
more and more, as I discovered the utter power- 
lessness of my own wisdom and judgment to guide 
me aright, and felt increasingly that, only as the 
Spirit accompanied and energized my service, was 
it ever of any avail. But here, too, all my efforts 
seemed worse than useless, and I found myself 
only involved in continually increasing perplexity 
and darkness. 

At times the belief forced itself upon me that 
all Christians were not like me; that the lives of 
some were full of a degree of devotedness and 
depth of communion to which I was a stranger ; 
and I wondered what their secret could be. But, 
supposing it could consist in nothing but their 
greater watchfulness and earnestness, I knew of no 
resource but to seek to redouble all my efforts, and 
to go through the same weary round of conflict and 
struggle again, only, of course, to meet with the 
same bitter defeat. 

Such was my life ; and, in spite of much outward 



148 FORTY WITNESSES. 

earnestness and devotedness, I felt it to be a failure. 
Often I said to myself that if this was all the Gospel 
of Christ had for me, it was a bitterly disappointing 
thing. For though I never doubted the fact of my 
being a child of God, justified and forgiven, a pos- 
sessor of eternal life, and an heir of a heavenly in- 
heritance, still, when my heart condemned me — and 
this was almost continually — I could not have con- 
fidence toward God, and I was not happy. Heaven 
itself seemed to lose its charm to the heart that was 
afar off from God. 

I began to long after holiness. I began to groan 
under the bondage to sin in which I was still held. 
My whole heart panted after entire conformity to 
the will of God, and unhindered communion with 
him. But so thoroughly convinced was I that no 
efforts, or resolutions, or prayers of my own would 
be of any avail, and so ignorant was I of any other 
way, that I was almost ready to give up in despair. 

In this time of sore need (1863) God threw into 
my company some whose experience seemed to be 
very different from mine. They declared that they 
had discovered a " way of holiness/' wherein the 
redeemed soul might live and walk in abiding 
peace, and might be made "more than conqueror'* 
through the Lord Jesus Christ. 

I asked them their secret, and they replied, " It 
is simply in ceasing from all efforts of our own and 
in trusting the Lord to make us holy." 



HANNAH WHITALL SMITH. 149 

Never shall I forget the astonishment this answer 
gave me. " What ! " I said, " do you really mean that 
you have ceased from your own efforts altogether, 
in your daily living, and that you do nothing but 
trust the Lord? And does he actually and truly 
make you conquerors ? " 

" Yes," was the reply, " the Lord does it all. 
We abandon ourselves to him. We do not even 
try to live our lives ourselves; but we abide in 
him, and he lives in us. He works in us to will 
and to do of his good pleasure, and we hold our 
peace." 

Like a revelation the glorious possibilities of a 
life such as this flashed upon me ; but the idea was 
too new and wonderful for me to grasp. I had 
never thought of Christ as being such a Saviour as 
I now heard him described to be. I had known, 
indeed, that he gave me life in the first place as a 
free gift, without I myself being able to do one 
single thing toward obtaining it, except to believe 
and to receive. But that he should now live my 
life for me in the same way, without my being able 
to do any thing except believe and receive, sur- 
passed my utmost conceptions. I had learned how 
to trust him for the forgiveness of my sins ; but I 
had always trusted myself to conquer them. I had 
seen the sad error of legality as regarded my re- e 
demption ; but I was altogether legal in my 
thoughts as regarded my daily holy living. I had 



150 FORTY WITNESSES. 

never dreamed of trusting the Lord for that, and I 
did not know how to do it. 

So I went to work harder than ever. Over and 
over again I tried to dedicate myself to God. I 
sought to bind my will with chains of adamant, and 
to present it a holy offering before the Lord. I lay 
awake whole nights to wrestle in prayer that God 
would grant me the blessing he had granted these 
other Christians. I did every thing, in short, but 
the one thing needful. I could not believe ; I did 
not trust ; and all else was worse than useless. But 
perhaps not altogether useless ; for it taught me 
very effectually one necessary lesson, and that was 
my own utter and absolute helplessness. 

At last, however, I saw clearly that I was indeed 
truly nothing; that I needed the Lord just as ab- 
solutely for my daily living as I had needed him in 
the first place to give me life. I discovered that I 
was just as unable to govern my temper or my 
tongue for five minutes, as-I had been long ago to 
convert my soul. I found out, in short, the simple 
truth, which I ought to have learned long before, 
that without Christ I could do nothing ; absolutely 
nothing. I saw that all my efforts, instead of help- 
ing, had only hindered the work. 

Then I began anew to search the Scriptures. I 
found that the salvation he had died to procure was 
declared to be a perfect salvation, and that he was 
able to save to the very uttermost. I found that he 



HANNAH WHITALL SMITH. 151 

offered himself to me as my life, and that he wanted 
to come into my heart and take full possession there 
and subdue all things to himself. I felt that this 
was indeed a gospel to meet my utmost needs, that 
such a salvation as this would satisfy the widest 
limit of my longings, and unspeakably I desired to 
appropriate it as mine. 

But here I was met by another enemy, whom I 
had thought forever slain. It seemed as if I could 
not trust the Lord ; as if I was actually afraid to do 
so. Legality had been met and conquered, but un- 
belief still remained, and threatened to shut me out 
altogether from the promised land of rest. Although 
God had declared the Lord Jesus to be a perfect 
Saviour, sufficient for my daily and hourly needs, 
I could not believe he would really prove to be so. 
It seemed too great a trust to repose in any one, 
even in the divine Saviour. But in his infinite love 
he broke down this last remaining barrier also. 

He sent to our house (in 1864) a young man 
whose soul was in great darkness because of doubts 
concerning his salvation. It was my privilege to 
point him to Jesus Christ as a Saviour just suited 
to meet his needs, and to tell him of the complete- 
ness and present reality of the salvation purchased 
by him. And as I talked to him and set forth the 
boundless love of Christ, and his divine power to 
save to the uttermost all who come unto God by 
him, my heart was rebuked for my own unbelief. 



152 FORTY WITNESSES. 

Could it be that the Saviour, who was willing to 
forgive the sins of the rebel, would be unwilling to 
deliver the longing soul of one, who loved him, and 
panted to follow him, from the present power and 
dominion of sin ? Was I to urge another to believe 
that his prayers for forgiveness were answered, when 
I did not believe that my prayers for conformity to 
the image of Christ were, or ever would be? My 
heart shrank back at the thought of such inconsist- 
ency, and the last barrier of unbelief was broken 
down. The Lord revealed himself to me as so 
worthy of my utmost confidence, that I could not 
help trusting him. He showed himself to me as a 
perfect, and complete, and present Saviour, and I 
abandoned my whole self to his care ; telling him 
that I was utterly helpless, that I could not feel, 
nor think, nor act, for one moment as I ought to 
do, and that he must do it all for me — all. I con- 
fessed my own absolute inability to dedicate myself 
to his service, my powerlessness to submit my will 
to his ; and I cast myself, as it were, headlong into 
the ocean of his love, to have all these things ac- 
complished in me by his almighty working. I 
trusted him utterly and entirely. I took him for 
my Saviour from the daily power of sin with as 
naked a faith as I once took him for my Saviour 
from its guilt. I believed the truth that he was my 
practical sanctification, as well as my justification, 
and that he not only could save me, and would save 



HANNAH WHITALL SMITH. 1 53 

me, but that he did. The Lord Jesus Christ be- 
came my present Saviour, and my soul found rest 
at last, such a rest that no words can describe it — 
rest from all its legal strivings, rest from all its 
weary conflicts, rest from all its bitter failures. The 
secret of holiness was revealed to me, and that secret 
was Christ. Christ made unto me wisdom, and 
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. 

At first my faith was but a weak and wavering 
one. Almost tremblingly I hung on to Christ mo- 
ment by moment, saying continually in my heart, 
" Lord, I trust thee, I trust thee. Look, Lord, I 
am trusting thee." But I found to my astonishment 
that it was a practical reality that he did deliver me. 
When temptation came, I did not try to conquer it 
myself, but at once handed it over to him, saying, 
"Lord Jesus, save me from this sin. I cannot save 
myself, but thou canst and wilt, and I trust thee." 
Then I left it with him, and he fought for me, while 
I stood by and held my peace. And he always 
came off conqueror. 

Thus daily my faith grew, and I was able to 
apprehend more and more of that for which I was 
apprehended of Christ Jesus. I longed to grasp 
the utmost limits of the deliverance from sin, pur- 
chased for me by the death of Christ. Just what 
this limit was I did not understand, either in its 
nature or extent, but I could leave it all to him. 
I did not indeed know what was the meaning of 



154 FORTY WITNESSES. 

that scripture wherein we are told that the body of 
sin was destroyed by the crucifixion of Christ, and 
where we are commanded therefore to reckon our- 
selves dead to sin. (Rom. 6.) But I did know 
that it meant something which would enable us 
henceforth not to serve sin, but to bring forth fruit 
unto holiness ; and also that it must mean some- 
thing which would please and satisfy God. And, 
since this was God's purpose in the death of Christ, 
I saw that it must be my privilege to enter into it, 
although in myself so vile and unworthy. And 
I saw, also, since Christ had finished the work God 
gave him to do, that my part in it could only be 
to accept the gift from his hands ; and that that 
gift, therefore, was mine the moment I trusted 
God for it. I did therefore trust him definitely for 
this very thing; and I, even I, was enabled to 
" reckon myself dead indeed unto sin, but alive 
unto God in Jesus Christ my Lord." 

Thus that flesh, which I had discovered to be so 
utterly corrupt and incapable of improvement, I now 
found could be reckoned to be dead and conse- 
quently abandoned. Necessarily I had at first only 
a very imperfect comprehension of what this meant, 
but practically I found, from the very first, that 
just in proportion as by faith I did abandon the 
flesh or carnal nature in me, and reckon it to be 
dead, so also did the flesh lose its power over me to 
conquer or enslave. 



HANNAH WHITALL SMITH. 1 55 

And " according to my faith " I have found it 
done unto me, ever since. Whenever I, by faith, 
reckon myself to be dead, I find I am practically 
dead. In putting off the old man by faith, and 
putting on the new man, I find that the one is 
actually put off and the other actually put on. My 
soul has entered into that interior rest or " keeping 
of Sabbaths" which the apostle Paul, in Heb. 4. 9, 
declares " remaineth for the people of God ; " and I 
am dwelling in the " peaceable habitations " and 
" quiet resting places/' promised in Isaiah 32. 18. 
Not that there are no conflicts. Ah, no ! But the 
battle is no longer mine, but Christ's. 

And now, if I am asked what is my life ; with a 
deep and abiding sense of my own nothingness I 
can only answer that, in so far as I am faithful, 
Christ is now my life. Once I had truth about him, 
but now I have himself! Once I tried to live in 
my new nature, independent of him ; now I am 
joined to him in a oneness that is indescribable, 
knowing that I have in truth no other life but his, 
and seeking more and more to live only there. 
Not that I never leave this blessed abiding-place, 
and walk in the flesh again, to my unspeakable re- 
regret. But Christ is always the same, and the way 
of access by faith is always open ; and, thanks be 
unto God, he is faithful to keep that which I have 
committed to him, and more and more does he con- 
firm my soul steadfast and immovable in him. 



156 FORTY WITNESSES. 

All the former period of my Christian course 
seems comparatively wasted. I was a child of God, 
it is true ; but my growth was stinted, and my 
stature feeble. But when this secret of faith was 
revealed to me, I began to grow ; and the dedica- 
tion, which was before impossible to me, became 
the very joy of my heart. 

Since the time of my entrance into this life I 
have gone through many " experiences " and have 
outgrown many " dogmas ; " and in some respects 
my " views " have greatly changed. But, through 
all, my attitude of soul has remained unchanged. I 
have sought to keep a continual spirit of surrender 
and trust, and have tried to be obedient to the best 
light I knew. When I have failed, it has been the 
result of either disobedience or lack of faith, and it 
has needed only a return to the place of perfect 
surrender and entire trust, to restore my soul again 
to its place of rest. At every moment, when sur- 
render and trust have been active, the Lord has 
never failed to respond with his wondrous grace. 
Moreover, he has never failed to make even my 
mistakes work together for my eternal good. In 
short, I have found it to be more and more true, 
every day of my life, that Christ is a complete and 
ever-present Saviour, and that if I but commit all 
my interests to him, I have as a dear child once 
said, nothing to do now but "just to mind.." To 
say " Thy will be done" seems to me, more and 



HANNAH WHITALL SMITH. 157 

more, the sweetest song of the soul. The deepest 
longings of my whole being are met and satisfied in 
God. He is enough ! 

Believing, resting, abiding, obeying — these are my 
part ; he does all the rest. What heights and depths 
of love, what infinite tenderness of care, what wise 
lovingness of discipline, what grandeur of keeping, 
what wonders of revealing, what strength in weak- 
ness, what comfort in sorrow, what light in dark- 
ness, what easing of burdens I have found ; what a 
God, and what a Saviour, no words can tell ! 

"Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there 
is none upon earth that I desire beside thee." 

HANNAH WHITALL SMITH. 
Philadelphia, Pa., April 19, 1887. 



158 FORTY WITNESSES. 



XX. 

ASAHEL H. HUSSEY. 

(FRIEND.) 

T WAS born November 23, 1833, in the village 
JD of Mount Pleasant, Ohio. 

My parents were Friends or Quakers, which gave 
me a birthright membership in that Church of 
which I am a member. 

I had a guarded religious education, was early- 
taught by my mother to say " Now I lay me down 
to sleep," and often had deep religious convictions. 

From a child I have been a faithful attendant on 
public worship, and when very young acknowl- 
edged God. I had no Sabbath-school privileges 
and but little practical instruction in the way of 
salvation, but had a covenant with God, and tried 
to serve him. 

I have no distinct recollection of my conversion, 
but remember I often prayed for forgiveness of 
sins, and at times joy and peace followed. While 
this was the case I had such struggles with my car- 
nal nature that I doubted my conversion. I often 
prayed earnestly for deliverance, and sought it by 
the deeds of the law, knowing no other way. 



ASAHEL H. HUSSEY. 159 

I had been taught, by reading our standard 
works, to believe in Christian perfection or holiness, 
and once wrote an article upon the subject, and 
would argue for it. 

As I became actively engaged in Sabbath-school 
work I was painfully, conscious of a need in my 
soul not supplied — an aching void which led me 
to earnestly cry unto God for deliverance. But it 
never came. I had many years of this kind of life — 
doubts and fears— careless and indifferent, then 
faithful and peaceful — but no steady walk with God. 

In the providence of Gqd I met with a friend 
who spoke of having received the blessing of holi- 
ness. She told of the light and joy and peace 
which filled her soul, and while she talked my heart 
burned within me for a like experience, and I began 
to seek for it in real earnest. 

She left me a little tract to read — " Out of dark- 
ness into the kingdom " — by R. P. Smith, which 
gave me some help. 

Being often in company with D. B. Updegraff, 
who had received the experience of holiness a short 
time before, I now sought help from him, and one 
Sabbath afternoon in June, 1870, as we were talk- 
ing upon this experience, I found clearly the way 
to obtain it. I learned if I made a complete con- 
secration of all to God, and then simply believed 
that God accepted the offering, that the altar would 
sanctify the gift the moment it was put thereon — I 



l6o FORTY WITNESSES. 

would have the blessing of sanctification. This 
seemed easy and simple. I concluded to try it, but, 
for fear of failure, I thought best to say nothing 
about it. As my consecration was complete 
I had peace in it, but nothing definite came in my 
experience until a few days after, when I confessed 
to a very intimate friend, in the presence of others, 
" That my all was the Lord's." Then a flood of joy 
and peace filled my soul. From this time I 
believed and confessed the experience, which 
increased my faith and confidence. 

Because of much opposition, and a conscious 
weakness in speaking boldly for Christ, I felt I 
needed the induement of power from on high. In 
this condition I retired to my room and there 
poured out my soul to God for deliverance. While 
thus engaged in prayer I felt a peculiar sensation 
come over my body, and the glory of the Lord 
filled my soul, so that I shouted aloud, u Glory to 
God," until I was completely prostrated, and asked 
God to stay his hand. I felt the Spirit permeating 
my entire being, and that I was now fully crucified 
with Christ, cleansed from all sin and dead indeed 
unto sin. 

The thought of sin pained my heart, and to yield 
to it I felt would be instant death. 

After recovering from my prostration I sat up to 
read my Bible, which was wonderfully illuminated. 
While reading a doubt was thrust into my mind as 



ASAHEL H. HUSSEY. l6l 

to whether this was truly the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost or a delusion. This was soon overcome, and 
the glory of the Lord so filled me that I could not 
sleep that night. As I walked out in the beauti- 
ful moonlight I could hear the insects singing 
" Glory to God," the crickets in the grass saying, 
" Blessed Jesus," and in the house the old clock on 
the wall ticked " Praise God." This thrilling emo- 
tion, which lasted for days, did subside, but the life 
and light, joy and peace, have continued for these 
seventeen years. I immediately entered upon gos- 
pel service with renewed energy, and was blessed 
in it. I have had many severe trials and tests of 
my faith, but Christ has given the victory. 

I have found it safe to trust all in the hands of God 
and obey him in all things, and in so doing I find 
more happiness, joy, and peace in life than I ever 
had before. " There are no joys like the joys of 
God's salvation." In times of trial and perplexity 
I find it delightful to commit all to God, realizing 
that he knows best and cares for me still, and will 
never leave nor forsake me. Praise his name. 

ASAHEL H. HUSSEY. 

Mt. Pleasant, O., Twenty-fifth Day, Third Month, 1887. 
11 



1 62 FORTY WITNESSES. 



XXI. 

REV. LEWIS B. BATES, D.D. 

(METHODIST.) 

XX AH EN seven years of age, in a prayer-meeting 
I led by my brother, Rev. George W. Bates, 
who gave the invitation for any who desired to 
seek the Lord to manifest it by rising, standing up 
beside my mother and kneeling with her hand upon 
my head, she said, " Lewis, do you want to be 
saved ? " " Yes, mother," was the reply. Then 
said the mother, " Believe on the Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." The boy 
did believe and was saved, and gave testimony at 
the close of the meeting that Christ had received 
him as his disciple. In school the next day, at re- 
cess, he told the children what God had done for 
him, and then he had the clear conviction that God 
called him to be a preacher of his Gospel. For one 
year all went well with me. But fifty years ago very 
little was thought of a child's religion, and I was 
left mostly to myself, not invited even to unite 
with the Church, but my mother always believed in 
my piety. 

At thirteen years of age I left home to work for 



REV. LEWIS B. BATES, D.D. 163 

my education, and continued in much the same re- 
ligious condition until I was seventeen years of age, 
when, on the 27th of February, 1847, after care- 
ful self-examination, I brought all to God's altar 
and made an entire consecration to him of all I had 
or hoped to be, and by faith received the entire 
cleansing of my heart by the blood of Jesus Christ, 
" which cleanseth from all unrighteousness/' My 
reputation, talents, time, heart, will, choice, kindred, 
and all, was accepted of him in the everlasting cov- 
enant ; and from that hour to this I have not will- 
fully disobeyed him. Many mistakes, many errors 
of judgment, but the offering has never been taken 
back. God did accept all, and has been living in 
this heart of mine Sovereign and King. 

God has gloriously revealed himself to me as a 
complete Saviour. 

During thirty-eight years of my ministry I have 
always enjoyed and preached a full, free and perfect 
salvation, urging the people to present deliverance 
from all sin and entire sanctiflcation to God and 
his service, and perfect conformity to the will and 
image of Christ's preaching ; to all that the witness 
of sanctiflcation is as clear and distinct as our ac- 
ceptance with God can be. I have found in these 
thirty-seven years of experience peace, rest, joy and 
consolation perfect in Christ, without any failures 
on his part. I find the Holy Spirit an abiding 
guest, ever witnessing with the blood and word, de- 



164 FORTY WITNESSES. 

claring that "he that is born of God sinneth not." 
Of this victory secured by the blood of cleansing I 
could write volumes. It is new every morning, 
every evening, every midnight ; yes, new every mo- 
ment. O boundless ocean of perfect love in Jesus 
Christ my Lord ! 

All glory be to God for the great things he has 
done for me personally in my family ; brought them 
all to know him " whom to know is life eternal." 

Now there burns on the altar of my heart the 
holy fire of love supreme to God, and love pure and 
consecrated to all men. 

" Great peace have they that love thy law, and 
nothing shall offend them/' 

" If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, 
ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done." 

LEWIS B. BATES. 
East Boston, Mass., March 12, 1888. 



OSIE M. FITZGERALD. 165 



XXII. 

OSIE M. FITZGERALD. 

(METHODIST.) 

T WAS born in Bernardsville, New Jersey, in 1813. 
J} When I was about six years old, thinking I 
would have a nice time, I took a water-melon from 
my uncle's farm near by and divided it with two 
cousins. My oldest brother, nearly twelve years of 
age, heard what I had done. In the evening he 
took me aside and asked me if I knew I had been 
stealing. He said that, having taken it without my 
uncle's consent, it was stealing. What he said made 
no impression upon me at the time ; but the next 
April that dear brother died. Some time after his 
death I became deeply convicted of sin. My brother 
had told me that no one who stole could enter 
heaven. So I felt that I was lost. My convictions 
were so keen they destroyed my appetite, and I 
stayed away from my dinner. My father missed me 
and sent a servant for me. I told her I did not want 
any dinner, but wanted to see my father. I was in 
the garden weeping bitterly. The dinner was 
given up by my father. I was taken into the sitting- 
room, and he took me on his lap. Then I told him 



l66 FORTY WITNESSES. 

all — how I had taken the melon, and that I should 
be lost. He told me to stop crying and listen to 
him. He said Jesus had died for my sins, and if I 
would trust Jesus to save me he would do it. I think 
I believed because my father said so. As soon as 
I believed that Jesus pardoned my sins, in the 
twinkling of an eye the joy of the Lord filled my 
soul, so that I went skipping from sitting-room to 
parlor, from parlor to kitchen, like a bird of the air. 
My parents were delighted, for I had been under 
that weight of sin for weeks, till they began to fear 
for my health, not knowing what ailed me. At 
this time I was seven years old, and was thought 
too young to join the Church, so I was left out in 
the cold until I was nearly frozen to death. Some 
years afterward the Lord graciously visited the 
Presbyterian Church (to which my parents 
belonged) and gave me a fresh token of my accept- 
ance with him. I was then taken into the Church 
with my older brother and sister. At that time I 
was fifteen years of age. From the time I was con- 
verted my conscience was very keen, so that I 
would not take even a pin from the cushion of 
another, nor one that I found on their floor ; and 
if I repeated anything I had heard I would repeat 
the exact words. I prayed daily, but my Christian 
life was not a joyous one. I had been taught to 
say " I hope I am a Christian, " and that it was 
presumption to say I knew my sins were forgiven. 



OSIE M. FITZGERALD. 167 

Many times the question would arise in my mind, 
" Do I belong to the Lord ? " As years passed on 
I had a great desire to be more Christlike. I began 
to note the Lord's dealings with me. I kept a 
diary, which showed me many mistakes, failures, 
and broken resolutions. Though I now enjoyed re- 
ligion, and had the witness of God's Spirit that I 
was adopted into his family, yet when I " would do 
good evil was present with me." Little things 
would make me angry. In the morning, while 
bowed before God, I would resolve not to get angry 
that day. But when night came I found myself 
weighed down by broken resolutions. If I had 
company and wanted my dinner particularly nice, 
and it was burned, I was angry. If a servant went 
to the wrong side of a person at the table to help 
him, though I said not a word, I would feel angry, 
thinking my guest would consider me incompetent 
to teach my servant what was proper. My pride 
was wounded. Afterward I would weep before the 
Lord, knowing that he saw my heart though others 
did not. About that time the Lord sent the 
Rev. James Caughey to the Central Methodist 
Episcopal Church for a few weeks, and he preached 
clearly the doctrine of entire sanctification. I had 
not thought that I could ever live without daily 
committing sin. But when he took his text, " Be 
ye holy for I am holy," and said we are not only 
invited but commanded to be holy, the words 



l68 FORTY WITNESSES. 

struck deep into my heart. He then quoted Paul 
and Fletcher, Payson, Wesley and others. I 
thought, it may be for them but not for me. But 
the words came, " God is no respecter of persons," 
and with a determined will I said, " God being my 
helper, I shall have that blessing." We were in- 
vited forward to the altar. I went to get a clean 
heart ; but when asked what I came for I said, " a 
deeper work of grace." The Lord blessed me won- 
derfully, and I was told that it was entire sanctifi- 
cation ; for surely, they said, "if I were willing to die 
for Christ I must love God with all my heart." I 
did not believe I had it. I found then, and have 
found ever since, that it takes more grace to live 
for Christ than it does to die for him. Then it 
came to me, " Will you give your children to the 
Lord ? " It was suggested, " if you do he will take 
them out of the world." At last I surrendered 
them to God. Then came a still greater struggle. 
The Spirit said, " Will you give up your husband, 
to me? " I said, " Lord, I will die willingly if thou 
wilt let him live. I am not of much account, but 
I cannot live and let him die, for my health is so 
poor I will be unable to take care of my family." 
It was also suggested that "we might lose all our 
property, and I would at last have to go to the 
alms-house." That struggle lasted for two days or 
more. Then it was whispered to me, " You may be 
the means of saving some soul in the alms-house." 



OSIE M. FITZGERALD. 169 

Then came the passage, "No good thing will I 
withhold from them that walk uprightly." I 
yielded all to God. Saturday night came. I went 
forward for prayers. The Spirit said to me, " If I 
give you a clean heart, and sanctify you wholly, will 
you speak before this people and tell them what I 
have done for you ? M Having been brought up a 
Presbyterian I was very much opposed to women 
speaking in the church. I thought no one but a 
bold Methodist woman would speak in church. 
Consequently I said, " No ; it is not the place for 
a female to speak." Again the question was 
repeated. I then said " I would do it if the Lord 
required it, but he does not, for there are plenty of 
men to speak." My agony of soul increased, and 
as I continued to plead the question continually 
recurred. My agony of soul was so intense that it 
seemed to me it must soon be victory or death, and 
I cried out, " Yes, Lord, though it be before a thou- 
sand people." Then there was a great calm in my 
soul. And I said, " What now, Lord ? " The Spirit 
said, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray be- 
lieve that ye receive them and ye shall have them." 
(Mark 11, 24.) I saw clearly I must believe before I 
could receive. The tempter said, " How can you 
believe without any evidence ? " I replied, " I have 
God's word, and I believe the work is done if I never 
have any more evidence till I meet him at his bar ; 
for he says, ' Heaven and earth shall pass away, 



170 FORTY WITNESSES. 

but my word shall not pass away/ " " But," said 
the tempter, " you may find yourself mistaken." I 
said, " I will take that promise with me to the bar 
of God, and I will tell Him that I have been trusting 
Him (on his word) for a clean heart, without any 
evidence." Then the adversary said, " Perhaps you 
will find there is no God." I answered, " Then I 
am safe ; if there is no God there is neither heaven 
nor hell." Some time after a good brother said to 
me, " You do believe that God cleanseth you now 
from all sin." If I had had a thousand bodies and 
souls I could have thrown them all into that " Yes." 
The moment I confessed it the Holy Ghost with 
lightning speed came into my heart and cleansed it 
from all sin, and took up his abode in my heart 
and filled me with such unspeakable joy that for 
three days I scarcely knew whether I was in the 
body or out of it. Great struggle as I had to get 
a clean heart, it was a struggle of a week to get 
it cleansed, but need not have taken three minutes 
if I had surrendered my will to God ; but it is a life 
battle with the world, the flesh, and Satan to keep 
it clean, and nothing but a continual surrender to 
God can do it. 

God pardoned my sins in the winter of 1820-21. 
On the 27th of December, 1856, in the evening, in 
Central Methodist Episcopal Church in Newark, 
N. J., through the blood of Jesus Christ, God 
cleansed my heart from all sin, and the Holy Ghost 



OSIE M. FITZGERALD. 171 

sanctified me wholly, I think. Mr. Wesley says it 
is next to a miracle for any one to receive that 
blessing and never lose it. Then I surely am next 
to a miracle of grace. For I have never lost it, and 
I have no recollection of ever feeling the stirrings 
of anger, jealousy, pride, self-will, or bitterness, 
since the day God cleansed my heart from all 
sin and the Holy Ghost came in and filled me. 
He has been the door-keeper of my heart every 
hour since ; and from that day to this nothing 
has been permitted to enter that has not been 
submitted to the will of God. Temptations have 
come but have not been permitted to enter. There 
has not been one hour since that I have not 
had access to the audience-chamber of the Most 
High. I think I once came near losing it, not know- 
ing clearly the voice of the Spirit, in letting my 
husband decide for me, thinking the word of God 
required me to be obedient to my husband. In my 
early experience of full obedience to God the Spirit 
prompted me to pray in the meeting. Not being 
accustomed to try the spirits, I questioned wheth- 
er the evil one was not tempting me to break 
through the rules of the meeting and pray when 
the men were asked to pray and no woman was 
invited. Not knowing fully that it was of God I 
questioned till the opportunity was past. After- 
ward it was said to me, " If you had been led to pray 
in your room alone would you not have done it ? v 



172 FORTY WITNESSES. 

I said, " Yes." " Then what but a man-fearing or 
a man-pleasing spirit prevented you ?" I said, 
" Lord, show me clearly thy will ; please or dis- 
please man, I will do it." The adversary said, 
" You will do it before all those people." I said, 
" Lord, show me thy will, and I will do it if I 
die in the act." It came to me, " Now you will 
be tested." The next prayer-meeting I felt no lead- 
ing of the Spirit till near the close of the meeting, 
when it came to me, " Pray!" I said, "Lord, shall 
I pray when this man ceases ?" It came to me, 
"No." I thought "perhaps the Lord is going 
to teach me obedience and oblige me to ask 
the privilege to pray after they close the meeting 
I felt I would do it, but they sang another 
hymn and called upon a brother to pray, who 
commenced and could not pray, stopped, and I 
prayed, or rather the Holy Ghost prayed through 
my lips. After this there was a watch-night service 
appointed for Sunday night, and the Spirit showed 
me I was to go. After I came from church I was 
taken very sick, so that I could not sit up, and as 
the time for service drew near I began to feel that 
I might be mistaken about the Lord wanting me 
to go ; so I prayed earnestly for him to show me 
if he willed me to go. I found he did. It was sug- 
gested, " You are so sick." I said, " Lord, I will go if 
I die on the way." Not being able to walk straight 
it was with great difficulty that I got out of the 



OSIE M. FITZGERALD. 1 73 

house into the street ; but as I was passing the 
second house from mine all sickness left me, and in 
an instant I was as well as I ever was. The Lord 
had been working in that church ; the altar had been 
crowded night after night with seekers. That 
night the preacher could not get the people to 
move. I think only two went forward, and the 
spiritual atmosphere was heavy as lead. The 
preacher started down the aisle, and it was said to 
him, " There is your help, in that pew." Not know- 
ing who I was, as I was kneeling and he could not 
see my face, he said, " My sister, I want you to go 
forward and talk to those seekers." It was a great 
cross for me to do it ; but I went. He said, " We 
will sing one verse, then Sister FitzGerald will talk 
to us." Not thinking of one word to say, it was so 
great a cross that I know I could have died easier 
than to speak. But the thought came, " I must 
meet all these at the judgment," and though I could 
not think of one word to say, I said, " Here, Lord, 
are these lips ; speak through them." I told of an 
Episcopalian lady who some years before was in 
that church and became deeply convicted, but her 
husband opposed her coming again, saying she was 
as good as those who professed to be converted. 
A short time after she sickened and died. Just 
before she died she called for her little daughter, 
some two or three years old, to be placed upon the 
bed, her husband sitting beside her bed. She said, 



174 FORTY WITNESSES. 

" You have stood between me and my soul's salva- 
tion. You said I was good enough. Now I want 
you to promise me that you will let my dear child 
go to church as God leads her, that she may be 
saved. " As I told this an elegantly dressed lady 
from the middle of the church arose and came to 
the altar. As she started out the people started 
from all parts of the church and came forward, and 
many were converted. Two days after, this lady 
came to see me ; God had soundly converted her. 
She said, " I was deeply convicted, and wanted to go 
forward for prayers ; but my husband was in Wash- 
ington, and I thought he would be displeased when 
he came to find that I, an Episcopalian, had gone 
to a Methodist altar for prayers. But when you 
told that story I resolved he should not stand 
between me and God ; that I would have my soul 
saved." 

When I was first fully saved Christ so satisfied 
me that the things of this world did not trouble me. 
If a dinner were uncooked, or if it were burned, it 
did not move me ; and so in regard to other things, 
if the family complained, though I saw they had 
just cause for it, yet I felt I must not complain, 
fearing I might get angry, or that others might 
think I was angry, though I was not. But the Lord 
showed me he had grace enough for me to be 
decided and firm, and have things done in a proper 
way, and yet not have one quiver of anger; and he 



OSIE M. FITZGERALD. 1 75 

has proven it to be so. The way grows contin- 
ually brighter. I have sweet communion with the 
triune God. Sometimes my communion is with 
the Father ; then with the Son ; other times 
with the third person of the adorable Trinity. For 
the past few days my communion has been with 
the Father and the Son. He reveals himself to me 
so wonderfully, and has for the past few years, that 
human language cannot express it. At times it 
seems as if my heart were liquid. For years, can 
clearly say, my will has floated in the will of God as 
the cork floats on the water. To-day Jesus saves 

me fully. 

OSIE M. FITZGERALD. 

Newark. N. J., June 18, 1887. 



176 FORTY WITNESSES. 



XXIII. 

REV. GEORGE HUGHES. 

(METHODIST.) 

T N the order of a wise providence I was greatly 
J& favored in having Christian parents. They 
were members of the Wesleyan Society in Manches- 
ter, England. My precious mother was one of the 
holiest of women. The sweet savor of Christian 
holiness pervaded my early home. In the midst of 
many domestic cares and severe trials my mother 
exemplified daily the spirit and power of Christian 
perfection, and it was her aim especially to bring 
up her children in the nurture and admonition of 
the Lord. She would often take them to her room 
and, " with strong cries and tears," commend them 
to her Heavenly Father's watch-care. The remem- 
brance of those hours of devotion is to me " as 
ointment poured forth." I am inclined to think 
that in early childhood I was made a subject of 
God's renewing grace, but, like too many of tender 
years, it was not distinctly retained. 

In the year 1838, when I was fifteen years of age, 
I came to this country. My new home was in Phil- 
adelphia. The separation from my friends and 
native land was very painful. 



REV. GEORGE HUGHES. 1 77 

It was not long, however, ere the prayers of my 
pious mother were answered. In the following year 
after my arrival in the United States, in February, 
1839, under the ministry of Rev. Charles Pitman, 
in the Eighth Street Methodist Episcopal Church, 
Philadelphia, I was happily converted. For a time 
I went on my way rejoicing, but, through the influ- 
ence of improper associates and the discouragements 
of my business position, I was turned aside from 
the right path. Through the mercy of God, I 
was arrested, and restored to my forfeited peace. 

Subsequently, I removed to the city of New York 
and became connected with the Allen Street Church. 
There I became acquainted with Dr. and Mrs. 
Phoebe Palmer, and a life-long friendship was 
formed. They manifested a loving interest in the 
stranger-boy, and sought to lead me into the higher 
walks of the Christian life. They conducted a 
meeting in the church on Saturday evening for the 
promotion of holiness. I attended that meeting 
and felt its potential influence — in fact, I believe at 
that time I had some experience of sanctifying 
grace ; but the evidence was not very clear, and I 
did not hold to the line. Rev. John Poisal was pas- 
tor of the church, and manifested a lively interest 
in my welfare. He gave me license to exhort, and 
I became connected with the Local Preachers' 
Association of New York. 

In 1843 I was called to enter the itinerant minis- 
12 * 



178 FORTY WITNESSES. 

try of the Methodist Episcopal Churcn by Rev. 
John S. Porter, presiding elder of the Newark Dis- 
trict in the New Jersey Conference. I was sent to 
the Madison charge as junior preacher. I entered 
upon this responsible work with much trembling, 
but under the solemn conviction that I was called 
of God, and that this must be my life-work. In 
1844 I was admitted on trial in the Conference and 
continued to prosecute my holy calling, God being 
pleased to give me seals to my ministry. Unfor- 
tunately for me, in the early years of my itinerant 
life, my environments were such that a foolish preju- 
dice against special meetings for the promotion of 
holiness was engendered in my heart. This was a 
snare to me, and a great hindrance to my Christian 
progress and usefulness as a minister. My friends, 
Dr. and Mrs. Palmer, like guardian angels, were ever 
upon my track,and, had I yielded to their loving min- 
istries, would have led me into the " Land of Beu- 
lah." In one of my charges the now sainted and be- 
loved Mrs. Mary D. James was one of my flock. 
But I was particularly averse to being led by "holy 
women" in this matter. I thought I understood the 
doctrine of Methodism, having studied our standard 
writers in my Conference course, and when I was 
ready to seek the experience I would do so without 
the persuasions of others. The remembrance of 
those years of unreasonable opposition is now very 
painful, and I would fain obliterate the record. But, 



REV. GEORGE HUGHES. 179 

alas ! it is ineffaceable. I held to the doctrine of 
entire sanctification tenaciously, and preached it to 
my people, thinking it my duty to do so as ex- 
pressive of my loyalty as a Methodist preacher. 
Often while thus discoursing to the congregation 
the Spirit would speak to me powerfully, saying, 
" Why don't you do this yourself? " But I pleaded 
for a postponement. 

At length, after about twenty years of this bat- 
tling with conviction, God, in the order of his 
providence, brought matters to an issue by permit- 
ting me to go into the furnace of affliction. While 
presiding elder of the Burlington District, N. J., I 
became nervously prostrated and was obliged to 
resign my charge. By the advice of physicians I 
returned to my native land to enjoy a year of en- 
tire quiet. I was thus furnished with an opportu- 
nity to review my past life. In taking this retro- 
spect I became painfully conscious of my defects, 
and especially did my mistakes concerning the sub- 
ject of Christian holiness loom up before me. At 
this juncture Dr. and Mrs. Palmer, who were en- 
gaged in evangelistic services in my native city, 
Manchester, called to see me one day at my father's 
house. I was not at home, but when informed that 
they had called my heart was deeply affected. It 
brought up memories of the past very vividly. I 
attended the services and the Holy Spirit, through 
their instrumentality, wrought deep conviction in 



l8o FORTY WITNESSES. 

my mind. At the close of these services they went 
to Nottingham. I said to my companion, " It 
seems as if Satan has gained advantages over me for 
twenty years touching personal holiness ; let us pack 
our trunk and go to Nottingham and see what the 
Lord will do for us there." Accordingly we went, and 
obtained quarters in the home of a Wesleyan local 
preacher who was enjoying entire sanctification. 

On Sabbath morning, May 31, 1863 (ever mem- 
orable day) we attended service in the Wesleyan 
chapel, and the junior preacher, Rev. Mr. Henchell, 
preached a sermon on the text, " We know that all 
things work together for good to them that love 
God." This sermon was made a great blessing to 
my soul. While listening thereto there came to 
me a voice from heaven, saying, u If the Lord shall 
fully baptize you with the Holy Ghost will you wit- 
ness to the people of Nottingham of the great sal- 
vation?" To this my heart made affirmative re- 
sponse. A flood of joy came in upon me instantly, 
and I returned from the house of God to my lodg- 
ings, praising the Lord along the street. In the 
afternoon we went to the opening service of Dr. 
and Mrs. Palmer, in the Shakespeare Street United 
Free Methodist Chapel. During that hour I was 
led to make my entire consecration very definite, 
and the witness of the Holy Ghost to inward pu- 
rity, through the application of the all-cleansing 
blood of Jesus, was very clear and joyous. In 



REV. GEORGE HUGHES. l8l 

making my entire consecration it was laid upon 
me that on my return to the United States I 
should witness of this grace — a vow which I sacredly 
performed. In the evening of that day I was led to 
give public testimony to probably fifteen hundred 
people of my folly in so long resisting my convic- 
tions on this subject, and of the gladness of my heart 
in the reception of this great blessing. I continued 
to enjoy the services there, and had great peace, 
although not able to participate very actively 
therein. 

We returned to the United States on the same 
steamer with our friends, Dr. and Mrs. Palmer, and 
had sweet fellowship by the way. The voyage was 
a stormy one, and at times the ship was in great peril 
but my mind was undisturbed. While the ship was 
rolling in the mighty waves, as I lay in my berth, 
I was ready to sing : 

" This awful God is ours, 

Our Father and our Love ; 
He will send down his heavenly powers, 

To carry us above." 

If spared to see next May a quarter of a century 
of experience on this line of light and love, will have 
elapsed. Blessed years they have been ! I cannot 
say, however, that throughout that entire period I 
have retained a clear witness of entire sanctification. 
The evidence has been obscured at times, but I 
have never been able to rest without it. 



1 82 FORTY WITNESSES. 

The years which have elapsed have been my growth 
period. My feet have been more and more estab- 
lished in paths of righteousness. The last two years 
have been exceedingly precious, full of power and 
joy in the Holy Ghost. I never preached with such 
freedom as I do at the present time. I am often 
filled with rapture in proclaiming a full and free 
salvation. 

The Bible is indeed a luminous book. Its hallow- 
ed pages, to my view, glow with supernatural light. 
I have great delight in prayer — closet, family, and 
public prayer. I find my heart going out with glad 
response to pointed scriptural teachings, particu- 
larly, " Love thinketh no evil," u In honor preferring 
one another," " Esteeming others better than your- 
selves," " And seekest thou great things for thyself ? 
Seek them not." In a word, love has the mastery, 
the antagonisms being destroyed, and my feet rest 
firmly on the Rock of Ages. I am proving, as 
never before, that salvation is a Divine personality — 
more, far more than a blessing. It is the internal re- 
vealment of The BLESSER in the infinitude of His 
attributes, constituting within my soul a never-failing 
and ever-springing well " springing up unto everlast- 
ing life." To God the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost, be everlasting praise ! 

GEORGE HUGHES. 

New York, March 12, 1888. 



SARAH A. L. PALMER. 1 83 



XXIV. 

SARAH A. L. PALMER. 

(METHODIST.) 

T WAS born April 23, 1806, and born again June 
<i 21, 1819. Being taught by Christian parents 
that Jesus loved children, and often feeling a con- 
scious love to Jesus, I seemed to take it for granted 
that I was a child of God. But in my twelfth year 
I began to question my adoption. Just after I had 
passed my thirteenth birthday, on my way to a 
camp-meeting, I purposed to settle the question. At 
the first prayer-meeting I began to ask the Lord to 
make me his child and let me know it. Then came 
the first keen conviction. I was a condemned sin- 
ner ; I was frightened, and wept aloud. But soon 
the joy unspeakable was mine. The glory was too 
great for the feeble frame. Totally unconscious of 
earthly surroundings I joined the angelic choir in 
adoring him who so loved us. 

Months passed joyfully, when I was deeply im- 
pressed while reading Gen. 17. 1. It seemed to be 
a command, and yet an impossibility. Soon, how- 
ever, the light came. The Lord had prefaced the 
command by saying, " I am the Almighty." He 



1 84 FORTY WITNESSES. 

had also said, " I will put my Spirit within you and 
will cause you to keep my statutes and do them/' 

Temptations were many, and my views were not 
clear, but I felt that I must have a clean heart. We 
were going to a camp-meeting. I thought, " Surely 
I will get the blessing there." 

On the first day of the meeting I went forward as 
a seeker of sanctification, and continued to do so 
through the whole week. Jacob-like, the whole of 
the last night I wrestled. Dear ones said again 
and again, " Believe, believe the blood cleanseth." 
My reply was, " I do believe, but I want to feel." 
The day dawned; my dear mother said, " Daughter, 
you must leave this place," as she raised mejrom 
my knees. 

Finding I could struggle no longer I said, "I will 
believe." At that moment, as I opened my eyes 
and caught the first crimson ray of the rising sun, 
filled with rapture, I exclaimed, " The Sun of 
Righteousness has risen with healing in his wings." 

For months my comfort and confidence continued. 
Temptations came. My numerous young associates 
could not understand me. They said I was " super- 
cilious " or " sanctimonious." I did not then, nor 
do I now, in my eighty-second year, think I made 
the way too narrow. 

The tempter, no doubt, took advantage of me, and 
often brought me under painful fear lest I had 
grieved the good Spirit. Sometimes I prayed my 



SARAH A. L. PALMER. 1 85 

heavenly Father to take me from this world of 
temptations. I even told the Lord I could see no 
reason why I could not go and live where there was 
no danger of falling. 

But the crisis came. The family had returned 
from a funeral. As I entered the hall-door, and 
placed my hand on the rail of the steps, I breathed 
a sigh and said, " O, if they had only laid me away 
instead of that one ! ,! Instantly it seemed as if a 
heavy hand was laid upon my shoulder accompanied 
by a severe reproof. The voice said, " How un- 
grateful ! God has put you here for a purpose, and 
you are struggling to get away." Never did I so 
cower under an earthly parent's reproof. It was 
God my Father, and I had offended him by my im- 
patience. Bursting into tears I cried, " Lord, for- 
give me, and I will never ask this again." 

Another temptation was a fear that I might live 
to be old and useless. An ardently-loved relative 
seemed to be set aside as old and useless. Pass- 
ing her house, on the opposite side of the street, 
one day, I looked up to her window to catch 
the affectionate recognition. But the loved one 
did not appear. I drew a sigh, and was on the 
point of saying, " Please, dear Lord, don't let me 
live to be old and useless." Then the thought 
came, " They shall still bring forth fruit in old age." 
Rejoicingly I said, " That is written in the Bible, 
and if I live to be sixty years old I will claim that 



1 86 FORTY WITNESSES. 

promise." I was near fifteen when this precious 
promise was given, and I have held it fast, calling 
it mine, ever since. 

Tests came. The yielding of my will became so 
painful that my consecration was questioned, per- 
plexity followed, and the consciousness of purity 
was dimmed, then lost. Not until 1823 was the 
veil lifted. 

One evening I resolved not to rise from my knees 
without the clear witness of holiness. Several times 
the promise was presented, "The blood cleanseth." 
Trembling, I would say, "I do believe/' but, impa- 
tient for further manifestations, would again resume 
pleading. About one o'clock in the morning I 
opened the precious Bible on " Ye have need of 
patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, 
ye might receive the promises. For yet a little 
while and he that shall come will come, and will not 
tarry. Now the just shall live by faith." I felt the 
reproof and also the encouragement, and calmly 
said, "Lord, I will believe ; I am wholly thine ; help 
me to abide in thee." I. then retired, resolving to 
live by faith. At the dawn of day I awoke, desir- 
ing the Lord to confirm my faith by directing my 
eye to some special passage in the Bible. I opened 
to " Now the just shall live by faith, but if any man 
draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him!' 

I was thrilled. I felt to " draw back " would be 
death, and cried, " Lord, keep me ! " Throughout 



SARAH A. L. PALMER. 1 87 

the day a most profound solemnity rested on my 
mind. Holiness seemed written on every object. 
On Monday the enemy said, " It is possible you 
may yet be deceived ; you have not received this 
blessing as you expected/* But my soul sweetly 
rested in the precious promises. On Tuesday morn- 
ing a very powerful temptation was presented. I 
hastened to the closet, and, pleading my youth and 
inexperience, felt encouraged to ask another and a 
still more powerful assurance of purity. The an- 
swer was instantly given by a most powerful appli- 
cation of " Now are ye clean through the word 
which I have spoken unto you," 

It was enough. I was now permitted, in a man- 
ner unknown before, to walk and talk with God. 

I went to my class almost impatient to declare 
the loving-kindness of God. At the commencement 
our leader prayed, " Lord, sanctify us wholly ; let it 
not be a think so, a hope so, or a BELIEVE so." It 
went as an arrow to my heart. ' ■ You have evidence 
only as connected with believing." It was a fatal 
dart from the adversary. My only hope seemed 
wrested from me. Unconscious of all about me I 
seemed intent on having the question decided, "Is 
it a reality or not ? " When rising to leave the 
class-room the decision came to give up my intense 
interest on the subject of holiness. Others seemed 
to enjoy the favor of God without the witness, and 
I thought I would try to do so too. I little thought 



1 88 FORTY WITNESSES. 

of its impossibility. I was instantly hurled into 
darkness and despair, with nothing before me but 
the awful doom of the fearful and unbelieving. 

My senses were almost astounded with, " If any 
man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in 
him." For two weeks my sense of ingratitude was 
so great that I did not dare to hope for pardon. 
Then a sweet voice whispered, " This man receiv- 
eth sinners." I came as a sinner and was again 
accepted. But an impression that I had forfeited 
the close fellowship of former days caused deep hu- 
miliation. It seemed just that I should not be 
trusted. I had " drawn back," and as a naughty 
child I must be kept at a little distance for a time, but 
not disinherited. So subtle was this temptation that 
for months it was not suspected as Satanic. As 
soon as I detected its true character I got the 
victory. 

With new light came new responsibilities. The 
first duty against which my will rebelled was leading 
a religious meeting, and, next, more faithfulness in 
personal warnings. The way in which I supposed 
the Lord required me to walk I could not expect the 
dearest loved one to understand. Alone with God 
this matter must be settled. Death seemed prefer- 
able to the divine terms. But at last I settled it, 
and again I triumphed. 

Early in May, 1835, an impression was felt so 
much like unhallowed emotion that it caused 



SARAH A. L. PALMER. 1 89 

extreme pain. I then resolved to have a more pos- 
itive assurance of inward purity. I immediately 
entered into covenant with God to withdraw my 
mind from every object that might divert me from 
this point, and to leave no means unused which he 
might appoint. Every motive, purpose and prac- 
tice was required to undergo a renewed investigation. 
I cried, " O fill me with the Holy Ghost !" All was 
calm. I had none of the expected emotions. I arose 
from my knees fully determined to reckon myself 
dead to sin if I had not a joyous emotion in forty 
years, when the enemy immediately suggested, u You 
have no more evidence now than before ; you might 
have believed long since ; who ever heard of believing 
and continuing to believe without evidence ?" Im- 
mediately the Spirit replied, " Blessed are they that 
have not seen yet believe. ,, " Presumption " was the 
constant cry of the enemy. But the "sword of the 
Spirit " prevailed, though the contest was very 
severe. To " draw back" I knew was death, and I 
resolved to endure the conflict while mortal life 
should last, even if no other evidence was given. 
Just after forming this resolution the promise came 
with more power than ever, " Blessed is she that 
believeth, for there shall be a performance of those 
things which w r ere told her from the Lord." For 
seven days Satan tauntingly suggested, u You be- 
lieve because you will believe." Just at that time I 
met Rev. Timothy Merritt, who said, " Sister, you 



I90 FORTY WITNESSES. 

know something of holiness by experience ; do you 
not?" I was startled, and about to reply, " I am 
hardly prepared to answer that question/' but after 
a moment's hesitation I said, " I have dared to 
reckon myself dead indeed unto sin, but it is con- 
stantly suggested that it may be presumption, with 
so little evidence." Said Brother Merritt, " Never 
fear presumption in believing God; presumption lies 
in daring to doubt." All fear now vanished. The 
baptism of the Holy Ghost came in its glorious full- 
ness; it seemed as a baptism of love almost to the 
overwhelming of the physical frame, accompanied 
with an inexpressible consciousness of purity, a 
consciousness only understood by those who have 
received it. 

Since that blessed day, May 21, 1835, I think 
there has not been one hour in which my soul has 
not been sweetly resting in the precious atonement. 
Though the witness of the Spirit has not been with- 
drawn for an hour, yet there have been instances 
when sudden temptation has assumed so much the 
appearance of sinful emotion as to cause keen pain ; 
but I have been invariably enabled almost instantly 
to appropriate that blood which cleanseth from all 
sin. 

These acts of faith have generally been im- 
mediately succeeded by a most joyous assurance. 
Since I have been enabled to abide in Christ I be- 
lieve the language of my heart has been : 



SARAH A. L. PALMER. 191 

" No cross, no suffering, I decline, 
Only let my whole heart be thine." 

The responsibility of being a steward — an agent 
for God — seems very great. I fear I often lose op- 
portunities of acting for want of wisdom. I am, 
therefore, constrained to cry continually, " Teach 
me thy way ; lead me in a plain path." How pre- 
cious do I find the promise, " I will instruct thee, 
and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go ; I 
will guide thee by mine eye." The word of God is 
increasingly precious. It is principally through this 
medium I am permitted to hold converse with 
Deity. And while his infinite love and faithfulness 
are unfolded to my enraptured vision I hear him 
say, more and still more audibly, " Ye are my wit- 
nesses of these things." 

After more than seventy-six years of conscious 

adoption, and fifty-two of dwelling in the peaceful 

land of perfect love, my heart is singing, " Blessed 

be the Lord, that hath given rest to his people 

Israel, according to all that he promised ; there hath 

not failed one word of all his good promise w T hich he 

promised." — 1 Kings 8. 56. 

SARAH A. L. PALMER. 

316 East Fifteenth Street, New / 
York City, September 19, 1887. \ 



I92 FORTY WITNESSES. 



XXV. 

REV. HENRY P. HALL. 

(METHODIST.) 

T WAS born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 
<£> September 20, 18 14. Early in life I realized 
the need of salvation, and for over four years was 
burdened with a sense of sin. Near the age of 
twenty, while listening to a sermon, I said mentally, 
" I will take Jesus to be my Saviour." Immediately 
my burden was gone, and ere the evening passed 
God's love was shed abroad in my heart. In a 
short time I was immersed, and became a member 
of the Calvinistic Baptist Church in my native 
town. 

During the summer of 1839, * n Boston, I ob- 
tained Mahan's Christian Perfection, the study of 
which convinced me of my duty and privilege to be 
entirely sanctified to God. I was then an active, 
obedient Christian up to the light I had. 

With this increased light I at once sought to 
bring my whole being into oneness with God's 
will. Being fixed in my purpose I was soon 
enabled to regard myself as wholly the Lord's. 

Not long after, while in prayer, this thought 



REY. HENRY P. HALL. 1 93 

pressed itself upon my consciousness, " The triune 
God is here." I was at once filled with his peace, 
and arose satisfied. On returning to my business, 
and thenceforward, nothing disturbed my inward 
calm, though I had been troubled by a hasty tem- 
per. I was not aware that this was my entrance 
into the life of holiness until at a meeting, some 
evenings after, the Holy Spirit reminded me of the 
word recently given, " The triune God is here," as 
the time when he came into my life to abide, with 
all things pertaining to life and to godliness. I was 
filled with the Holy Ghost. It became my meat 
and drink to do his will as soon as known. This 
was in the winter of 1839 anc ^ 1840, from which 
time higher and holier motives actuated me. It was 
not long before the Lord called me to the ministry. 
The Baptist Church not encouraging my views of 
sanctification, I united with the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church. 

During the second year of my ministry my atten- 
tion was called to this word in Jeremiah, 15, 19: 
" If thou take forth the precious from the vile thou 
shalt be as my mouth." I had thought this fully 
done at the time God came into my life to abide. 
But the Holy Spirit now so impressed me with the 
importance of this word that I became still more 
sensitive Godward, and began to detect forms of 
selfish mixture that had not before arrested my 

attention. Finding myself unable to discriminate 
13 



194 FORTY WITNESSES. 

between the precious and the vile I yielded myself 
to God to do this for me. Soon a form of 
selfishness was discovered which so surprised and 
discouraged me that in utter desperation I imme- 
diately said, " I may as well give up my profession 
of holiness." As this thought passed through my 
mind I seemed to fall from that clear light and 
peace that for years had been my abiding state. 
Perceiving this I quickly said, " Why, Lord, all this 
and more if it be thy will," and instantly I was 
reinstated in God, having learned to distinguish 
the evil and how to be rid of it. 

This proved to be the lesson of my life, and 
never had to be repeated. 

If a temptation was likely to cause conflict I would 
no longer say (as I had been taught) that it was 
from without, but at once yielded myself to God to 
bring within more fully the life of Christ, for which 
the holy soul is predestinated. I became sensitive 
to the Holy Spirit's work through my powers, 
realizing that the wholly sanctified soul is as Jesus 
was when he entered upon his earthly mission. " I 
came not to do my own will, but the will of Him 
who sent me." 

My preference yielded to him on the instant of 
any evidence of inharmony with his way ; the 
Lord alone was exalted, and I moved on with cer- 
tainty in his will. 

It is now nearly forty-seven years since I en- 



REV. HENRY P. HALL. 195 

tered the highway of holiness, when death to sin 
passed upon my whole being, and it has been easy 
to yield up the self-life (which if indulged would 
become sin), bringing every thought into captivity 
to the obedience of Christ. 

My abiding home has been in the thirteenth 
chapter of 1 Corinthians. Love to fullness has 
abounded always toward God and man. Living 
by the " faith of the Son of God " it has always 
been adequate to the needs of this great salvation. 

I have two little words ever in use, yea and nay. 
Toward God in all things my yea is yea, toward 
any thing opposite to him my nay is nay. Thus is 
the Christ-life constantly revealed. 

A number of years since I met with a dear serv- 
ant of God, and asked him about his experience in 
holiness. He said with feeling that he was not 
now in that grace. I then related my experience 
as above, and said, " You have not withdrawn your 
consecration, have you ? " He replied, " I have not." 
His soul seemed stirred. I then asked, " Do you 
want God to regard you now as wholly consecrated 
to him ? " " I do," was his reply. I further asked, 
"Will you regard yourself as thus consecrated to 
God?" "There comes the tug of war," he said, 
but soon answered, " I will." I was led to state 
" The Holy Spirit will now witness to your accept- 
ance," and soon inquired, " Does he ?" " Yes," was 
his answer. I then said, " Brother, I have not 



I96 FORTY WITNESSES. 

spoken of a blessing that you are to guard, but a life 
into which you have entered." The next week he 
said that it had been the happiest of his life. At 
the preachers* class-meeting the next month he tes- 
tified that his experience the past month had been 
without parallel in his religious history. He is a 
prominent minister, and is now one of God's lights. 

HENRY P. HALL, 
North Adams, Mass., July 11, 1887. 



REV. WILLIAM JONES, D.D. 197 



XXVI. 

REV. WILLIAM JONES, D.D. 

(METHODIST.) 

T WAS converted when only twelve years of age, 
<£) and, after one year on probation, by no fault of 
my own I found myself outside of the Church. My 
sensitive soul was wounded and I gave up my hope 
in Christ, and after years of moral darkness, the 
contemplation of which is yet painful, at the age of 
nineteen years I was graciously reclaimed. But I 
spent only a brief period in conscious fellowship with 
God. 

Realizing fully that if I became a Christian indeed 
I should have to preach the Gospel, and conscious 
of my inability to meet the demands of the sacred 
office, I was disobedient to the heavenly calling. 

I put away the conviction of duty from my mind, 
and sought by severe application to study to dis- 
sipate all sense of religious obligation. I passed 
through an academic course of study, took up the 
science of medicine, and in the excitement of pro- 
fessional life sought a respite from the convictions 
of duty. But there came a time when the Spirit of 
God came with great power to my heart, the whole 
tide of my life was turned, my entire being was ar- 



I98 FORTY WITNESSES. 

rested and held in suspense by the presence of God, 
my past failures and future possibilities possessed 
me by day and by night. At this time I realized in 
some degree the danger of further disobedience ; it 
appeared to me that I must submit to God or ut- 
terly perish ; and after a severe struggle that lasted 
many days I yielded, and at a late hour in the night 
of August 11, 1857, alone in my office, I bowed in 
prayer to God, gave myself to him, and accepted 
Jesus as my personal Saviour. 

There came into my soul a sense of peace, a calm, 
quiet assurance of the divine favor; but it was not 
like my former experience; there was no ebullition 
of joy. There was a cold, sullen sense of submission 
from necessity, a spirit of subjugation, and the 
Father seemed far off, as if I were received on pro- 
bation, and it was not until the following November 
that I received by the Spirit the knowledge of com- 
plete reconciliation through Jesus Christ. Floods 
of light and joy came into my soul. I was pos- 
sessed of a new manhood ; " old things " had passed 
entirely away. I united with the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, and the path of ministerial duty was 
at once made plain ; it flashed with celestial bright- 
ness and glowed with a radiance almost inconceiv- 
able, and as soon as my probation expired I began 
to preach, but almost immediately renewed the con- 
troversy in my own mind, and for five years kept 
up my quarrel with God. 



REV. WILLIAM JONES, D.D. 1 99 

" Clouds and darkness were round about me," 
weak and undecided; I was vascillating and " un- 
stable as water.'' But there came a crisis, and I 
united with the Conference, and after two success- 
ful pastorates of two years each, in which many 
were converted, in the fifth year of my ministry I 
became greatly interested in the subject of holiness. 
I sought earnestly for a clean heart. The fiery 
baptism came upon me and I was " made every 
whit whole." 

For a little more than one year I enjoyed this 
precious experience, quietly and alone, but without 
interruption. No one preached on the subject that 
I knew of; no one testified to it in my hearing, and 
I cautiously kept still and remained quiescent until 
the brightness of it passed away, and I found my- 
self without the witness of purity and not always 
clear in my experience of sonship. 

About this time the first National Camp-meeting 
at Urbana, Ohio, occurred, and the whole country 
was aroused on the subject of holiness. But both 
the doctrine and experience were misrepresented by 
its friends and caricatured by its foes. 

The old heresy of the imputed holiness and the 
impeccability ~of the sanctified were vigorously 
advocated by a large class of adherents. 

These and other forms of error were prevalent in 
my congregation, and I began a careful examination 
of the doctrinal and philosophical aspects of the 



200 FORTY WITNESSES. 

subject. That I might have opportunity to hear 
their experiences and know their teachings I at- 
tended the special holiness meetings. I was also 
present at the second National Camp-meeting # at 
Urbana, and listened carefully to the sermons and 
teachings of the members of that association. I 
heard the thrilling testimonies of the newly sancti- 
fied and the enrapturing experiences of those who 
had been years in the way, and found the teachings 
of the association and the experiences of the people 
to be in accord with my own former experience and 
the standards of the Church. I there committed 
myself publicly to the cause of holiness, and de- 
clared my faith in the all-cleansing blood. 

After my return home I began to study the dif- 
ferent phases of the experience as manifested in the 
various temperaments and idiosyncrasies of those 
who enjoyed the blessing. I resolved not only to 
be correct theologically, but I was determined to be 
experimentally and practically so. I gave myself 
wholly to God ; I utterly abandoned every thing 
that was doubtful ; I put entirely away the very 
appearance of evil, and resolved to know and to 
please God. 

I knew that I could not reason myself into a clean 
heart ; but I also knew that my heavenly Father re- 
quired me " To sanctify the Lord God in my heart, 
and be ready to give an answer to every man that 
asked, a reason for the hope that is in me, in meek- 



REV. WILLIAM JONES, D.D. 201 

ness and in fear." I soon found that by a careful 
adjustment of myself to Christ, " the vine/' and a 
continuous exercise of my will to keep this relation 
unembarrassed, I grew in grace daily. My strength 
was enlarged, the witness of the Spirit to my 
cleansing became very distinct, and my soul was 
exceedingly sensitive to the approach of evil in any 
form. 

About ten months of this continuous life of obe- 
dience brought me out into a large place. And in 
April, 1874, while assisting Rev. I. N. Smith, of the 
Central Ohio Conference, in a holiness meeting, I 
received a special manifestation of the Spirit that 
far exceeded all my former experiences. My whole 
being was permeated with the divine presence. My 
soul was sublimated, and Christ in his divine per- 
sonality was revealed in wondrous power by the 
Holy Ghost. He appeared visibly before my con- 
sciousness, and for months he was " The man from 
glory standing by my right side." 

Thirteen years have passed away since then, years 
of intense labor and glorious victory ; years of severe 
trial and gracious deliverance. I have frequently 
encountered the same spirit that consigned John 
Huss to the flames; have gone over on my knees 
where " There was a sharp rock on that side and 
a sharp rock on this side ; " but have been enabled 
to say with the apostle, " Now thanks be unto God 
who always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and 



202 FORTY WITNESSES. 

maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge by us 
in every place." 

There have been periods of fluctuation ; there 
have been two periods of short duration of hesitancy, 
in which I swerved, in which I lost ground to some 
extent. I did not incur guilt, did not contract any 
moral pollution, but was conscious that I had in 
some degree lost my aggressive power. 

The causes that led to these weaknesses may be all 
embraced in the term carelessness. My will lost 
something of its tenacity of purpose ; my faith re- 
linquished its positive grasp on Jesus, and sellhood, 
in one form or another, began to assume dominion. 
But these periods were of short duration. For 
nearly fifteen years I have been a loyal citizen of 
the " Land of Beulah." During these years my 
soul has grown strong in fellowship with Jesus. I 
am still in the land, far out toward the interior. I 
ascend the mountain heights of this wonderful land. 
I wander through its valleys ; I breathe its perfumed 
and exhilarating atmosphere ; I feed upon its grains 
and fruits ; I inhale the fragrance that floats down 
from its " Mountains of Myrrh." And some day 
from one of its purple-clouded hills I shall step 
through the misty veil into the upper temple. 

WILLIAM JONES. 
Kansas City, Mo., Sept. 6, 1887. 



MARY SPARKES WHEELER. 203 



XXVII. 

MARY SPARKES WHEELER. 

(METHODIST.) 

T WAS born in England, June 21, 1835. At the 
«i age of six years I came with my family to 
America. My parents were devoted Christians, 
and spared no pains to train me up in the nurture 
and admonition of the Lord. 

Since my earliest recollection I have never passed 
a day without prayer, but it was not always the 
prayer of faith that brought salvation, for I often 
felt the burden of sin and condemnation on my 
heart. 

When eight years of age I was once playing 
" class-meeting " during recess at school. I was 
leader. All passed off joyfully until a little girl 
younger than myself arose to speak. She seemed 
to take the matter all in earnest, and said with 
trembling voice, as the tears rolled down her 
cheeks, " I am not as good as I ought to be. I 
sometimes do wrong and disobey my mamma. 
Pray for me, that I may be forgiven/' Suddenly 
my own heart began to ache. I thought, " If that 



204 FORTY WITNESSES. 

little innocent girl needs pardon how much more 
do I :! " The meeting closed and I started for 
home. When I supposed myself to be entirely 
out of sight and hearing I wept aloud. A gentle- 
man, until then unobserved by me, passed, and 
said in pitying tones, " What's the matter, little 
girl?" I made no reply. I did not stop until I 
reached my own little room, and, falling upon my 
knees, with a broken and a contrite heart I prayed 
earnestly for pardon. God heard my prayer. 

" He spake at once my sins forgiven 
And gave me glory, peace, and heaven." 

That night, young as I was, I could scarcely sleep 
for joy. I believe I was then converted, and had I 
told my parents and availed myself of the counsel 
and aid they would so gladly have given I might have 
walked in the light from that time until the pres- 
ent. But I did not understand that I was old 
enough to be a Christian ; did not hold fast where- 
unto I had attained, and soon relapsed into my 
former state. As years passed I drank into the 
spirit of the world, and it was not until I was 
fourteen years of age that I made up my mind, 
after a great struggle, to give my heart to Christ 
and become a Christian. In the year 1848 I was 
powerfully convicted of sin. I tried to quench 
the Spirit. I was away from home, attending' 
school, but my heart was so overwhelmed with 



MARY SPARKES WHEELER. 205 

a sense of my sins and my need of a Saviour that I 
could neither eat nor sleep. One day I tried in 
vain to commit my lessons to memory, and asked 
the teacher to excuse me. I went to my seat and 
with .my head in my hands, entirely oblivious to 
all that was passing around me, I promised God if 
he would spare me until a certain quarterly meet- 
ing, which was to be held some miles away, in 
about six months from that time, I would attend it 
and there seek Christ. My heart grew calm and I 
pursued my studies without anxiety until the Fri- 
day preceding the meeting. Then came a great 
conflict with the adversary. I thought, " To-mor- 
row I am to seek God/' The tempter said, " You 
are too young to begin now! All the other stu- 
dents, with few exceptions, are attending dancing- 
school, getting ready to enjoy life. You are cutting 
yourself off from all that is desirable in the future." 

" But I promised God, and I must!" 

" You cannot, because you have no feeling now ! 
You must wait until you feel as deeply as before. " 

" I promised I would wait no longer, and I must 
seek now!'' 

Thus the controversy continued until my head 
began to ache. Wishing in some way to calm my 
troubled mind I took a magazine from the shelf, 
intending for a time to change the subject by read- 
ing some entertaining story. I opened it, and the 
first words my eye rested upon were these : 



206 FORTY WITNESSES. 

" If now you're convinced. O yield to conviction ! 

Resolve to be God's in the strength of his grace, 
E'en now he beholds you with tender affection 

And you as his child he longs to embrace." 

Affrighted I threw the book from me. A trem- 
bling seized me, I fell upon my knees and said, "O, 
Lord, it is enough ! I will keep my promise. I will 
attend the meeting and acknowledge myself a 
seeker." I did so. When at the close of the Sat- 
urday evening meeting the presiding elder asked 
those who desired to become Christians to arise I 
arose alone in the great congregation. I was so 
young that my rising attracted no attention and 
called forth no remark or prayer, but when I 
reached my place of entertainment, in company 
with my own pastor's wife, she proposed prayer for 
me, and herself offered a fervent petition for the 
" dear child who had resolved to * remember now 
her Creator in the days of her youth.' " 

I did not experience any change in my mind 
during the meetings that followed, and returned on 
Monday morning disheartened, disappointed. Now 
the enemy renewed his attack, and said, " You put 
it off too long, and God has turned away from you, 
for is it not written, ' Because I have called and ye 
have refused, I have stretched out my hand and 
no man regarded, I also will laugh at your calam- 
ity and mock when your fear cometh ; then shall 
they seek me early but shall not find me ? ' " Nearly 



MARY SPARKES WHEELER. 2CJ 

a week passed away, bringing no relief to my 

heart, but I determined that I would never cease 

seeking until I found Christ. 

Desiring uninterrupted communion with God I 

entered a little grove near by, and, kneeling by a 

moss-covered log, I prayed earnestly for pardon. 

I tried to repeat God's promises to penitents, and 

while thus engaged hope sprang up in my heart, 

and I began to believe that mercy could reach even 

me, and amid my tears I said, 

" Here, Lord, I give myself away ! 
Tis all that I can do." 

The burden of condemnation rolled away, and I 
was freely pardoned. When I reached home the 
sun was gilding the west with radiance and glory; 
so the Sun of my soul seemed to be flooding my 
heart with light and peace. It was not a raptur- 
ous joy, but peace like a river, continually growing 
wider and deeper. My experience was clear and 
definite. I knew that I had passed from death 
unto life, and the joy this blessed assurance gives 
dwelt in my soul continually. I continued to walk 
in the light. I had an ardent desire to live a 
deeply spiritual life. To be merely an " accepta- 
ble member of the Church " was not enough. I 
resolved that I would take for my motto this verse, 

" Be as holy and as happy 

And as useful here below, 
As it is your Father's pleasure — 

Jesus, only Jesus know." 



208 FORTY WITNESSES. 

I did grow in grace, but the progress I made 
seemed very slow and unsatisfactory. I was con- 
stantly struggling against inbred sin. The carnal 
mind would assert itself, and with tears and self- 
abasement I was often led to cry, " I am carnal, 
sold under sin." " For I know that in me, that is, 
in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing, for to will is 
present with me, but how to perform that w T hich is 
good I find not." " For the good that I w r ould, I 
do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do." 
" Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that 
do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." I resolved in 
the strength of grace that I would be made " free 
from the law of sin and death." I said, " O Jesus ! 
if thou canst do the work, let it be done quickly, 
instantaneously! " And I began to seek earnestly 
for entire sanctification. 

Time would fail me in telling of the conflicts with 
the powers of darkness, the struggles of my soul in 
trying, in some way, to free itself from the body of 
this death, before sin and self were abandoned and 
the heart was unconditionally surrendered to Christ. 
I sought earnestly for months. My anxiety was so 
great that at times I was almost overwhelmed. 
My conviction was much deeper than that preced- 
ing conversion. I wept, fasted, prayed, conse- 
crated and humbled myself before the Lord over 
and over again. I would have given life itself to 
have secured the blessing. Often amid tears I sang, 



MARY SPARKES WHEELER. 20g 

" I thirst, thou wounded Lamb of God, 

. To wash me in thy cleansing blood. 

To dwell within thy wounds, then pain 

Is sweet, or life, or death is gain." 

Blessed be God, the fountain was open ! Christ was 
more willing to bestow than I was to receive, but I 
did not understand the way of faith. I was young, 
less than sixteen years of age, had never heard a 
sermon on the subject, had read but little ; did not 
know where to procure the helps I needed. I 
reversed God's order. I said I must feel that the 
work is done before I believe it. To be sanctified 
wholly is a great blessing, and my joy must be cor- 
respondingly great, and until I have a joy unspeak- 
able and full of glory I will not believe. Thus I 
lingered, and could not enter in because of unbe- 
lief. At times I was tempted to regret that I had 
ever heard of the doctrine, for before this I was 
happy in the enjoyment of justifying grace. Now 
I had come up to the Red Sea of difficulty. I had 
received the command, " Go forward ! M To retreat 
must be spiritual death. How to go forward I did 
not know. But the God who divided the Red Sea 
opened the way for me also. One day I went to a 
prayer-meeting, hoping to hear something on the 
subject that would bring relief to my mind, but was 
disappointed. As I was returning home, bearing on 
my heart a burden that seemed unendurable, I prayed 
earnestly to God for help. While passing a house, 

a lady with whom I was only slightly acquainted, and 
14 



2IO FORTY WITNESSES. 

who knew nothing of the state of my mind, called to 
me, saying, " I have a little book here which perhaps 
you may like to read." "What is it?" I eagerly in- 
quired. " I do not know," she replied ; " I have not 
read it ; but I know it is good because my friend, 
Mrs. A., who lives in New York, sent it to me ; and 
just as you came in sight the thought occurred to 
me that you had so much more leisure than I it 
would be well for you to read it first." I opened 
the book. It was entitled A Present to My Christian 
Friend, by Mrs. Phoebe Palmer. In it the author beau- 
tifully describes the way of faith. I went to my room, 
and, falling upon my knees before God, I read every 
word before rising. O what a feast to my hungry 
soul ! Every question that had perplexed me was 
satisfactorily answered, every difficulty removed. 
Presenting myself to Christ was such a reasonable 
sacrifice, and after doing this it was so easy to 
reckon myself dead indeed unto sin and alive unto 
God. If an angel had come down from heaven and 
handed me the book I could not have believed 
more fully that God sent it to me. Now the mys- 
tery vanished and the simplicity of faith amazed me, 
and in the calmness of that hour I took Jesus as my 
complete Saviour from all sin. There was no rap- 
turous joy, but the burden was gone. The " man 
of sin " was cast out, and Christ had entire posses- 
sion, while a peace which passeth all understanding 
seemed to permeate my entire being. 



MARY SPARKES WHEELER. 211 

That night I dreamed that in company with a 
friend, who had a few weeks before entered into 
this perfect peace, I was walking on a narrow strip 
of land " 'twixt two unbounded seas," when sud- 
denly a cyclone or storm of wind arose. I looked at 
my friend. It did not disturb her — did not even 
move the folds of her dress — while I was powerless 
before it. It lifted me from the earth and was bear- 
ing me out to the ocean. I caught hold of the 
branches of a tree that overhung the water, but 
they began to bend and break. I thought, u I shall 
surely be drowned in the depths of the sea.'/ In 
my anguish I cried, " Lord, increase my faith ! 
Lord, increase my faith ! M Immediately the branches 
broke, but instead of sinking I began to rise, and 
with nothing but the ocean beneath me and the 
sky above me I floated outward and upward nearer 
and nearer to God, while my soul was filled with 
ineffable glory. In a few moments I was awak- 
ened by my now sainted mother, who said : "What 
is the matter? Do you know you were making a 
noise? You were shouting Glory! at the top of 
your voice." " It was only a dream, dear mother ; 
but God has been teaching me wondrously to-day, 
and to-night he is teaching me to let go of every 
earthly support and by simple faith alone launch 
out into the ocean of God's infinite love." 

I rested here for about two weeks, when one day 
the Holy Spirit whispered : " ' They overcame by 



212 FORTY WITNESSES. 

the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testi- 
mony/ You have believed and received, now con- 
fess him." The enemy said : " Will you dare profess 
that you are perfect in love when you have no evi- 
dence, only the word ? " I said : " Yes ! I know, 
by faith I know. God's word is more reliable than 
my emotions ; when I have a favorable opportunity 
I will tell to the glory of God what he has done 
for me." A few days after, while seated at the 
tea-table with a company of Christians, a clergyman 
said to me : " My young sister, have you ever reached 
the point where you felt that you could claim Christ 
as your Saviour from all sin? Do you love God 
supremely ?" I replied: "I trust I have. I hope 
I do." Instantly the Spirit seemed to say: " That 
is not faith. That is not definite. That does not 
glorify me. You said you knew by faith. Tell 
them so." I said so loud that all could hear, " Yes, 
I know that Jesus saves me from all sin. I do 
love God with all my heart." No sooner had I 
uttered the words than I felt a strength and 
power imparted that I had never before experi- 
enced. That evening the pastor called upon me 
to pray audibly, and while lifting my heart to 
Christ the Holy Ghost fell upon me, and I was 
lost in " wonder, love, and praise." 

For months that followed I seemed to be in a 
new world. The whole earth seemed illumined 
with divine light. The very air seemed laden 



MARY SPARKES WHEELER. 21 3 

with the breath of God and the perfumes of Para- 
dise. What sympathy was there between my divine 
Lord and myself! How heartily I entered into all 
his plans for the evangelization of the world and 
the conversion of sinners ! How my heart yearned 
with unutterable longings for the sanctification of 
believers and for the baptism of fire to fall upon 
the entire Church of God ! O what humility was 
mine, what self-abnegation, what a sinking into 
Christ ! And when the Angel of the Covenant 
touched my lips with living fire what a change 
was wrought in me ! I, who had ever been afraid 
of the sound of my own voice, so timid, so shrink- 
ing, who had felt myself to be weakness personified, 
was now upheld by Omnipotent power! 

The word of the Lord was like fire shut up in 
my bones. I was weary with refraining, and to 
every call of the Spirit I responded, " Here am I, 
Lord, send me! " 

I would mention some of my difficulties and 
triumphs in becoming established in holiness. 
With humiliation I recall many lapses, with grati- 
tude the forbearance and long-suffering of the 
Holy Spirit. The lapses came in neglecting to 
testify to this saving grace. In my earlier expe- 
rience the enemy suggested that as so many in 
the church were older and wiser and richer in 
Christian graces than myself, at whose feet I could 
sit and learn of Jesus, and they did not profess 



214 FORTY WITNESSES. 

this blessing, therefore it would be immodest for 
me to say much about it; that I could live it, and 
the life would testify sufficiently without words. 
As often as I yielded to this suggestion I lost 
ground and in a measure was shorn of my strength ; 
and I have learned by experience that I must not 
only believe in my heart, but also confess with my 
mouth this uttermost salvation. Many years have 
passed since I entered this blessed " Beulah land." 
God has kept me by his power, not stationary, but 
constantly advancing from grace to grace, and from 
glory to glory, until often in amazement my soul 
cries out, " My Lord and my God ! " 

" Like a river glorious 

Is God's perfect peace. 
Over all victorious 

In its bright increase. 
Perfect — yet it floweth 

Fuller every day ; 
Perfect — yet it groweth 

Deeper all the way." 

MARY SPARKES WHEELER. 
Philadelphia, Pa., September 21, 1887. 



LUCRETIA A. CULLIS. 21 5 



XXVIII. 

LUCRETIA A. CULLIS. 

T HAD a light-hearted child-life, and never thought 
<& of being religious. In my eleventh year, in the 
Congregational Church, where my father and mother 
worshiped, I listened to the earnest presentation of 
gospel truths by Dr. E. N. Kirk. The sense of sin 
was awakened. One night I had gone to bed, but 
the weight of my sin I could not bear. I jumped 
up, sought my mother's bedside, and with sobs and 
tears besought her to pray for me. Kneeling there 
together the answer came. I arose " in the light." 
In the sweet relief of sins forgiven I quietly slept. 
Sad to say, those were the days when little or no 
help was given the child-convert. I know the mat- 
ter was discussed of joining the Church, but put 
aside as not suitable for one so young. Thus my 
early ardor soon burned itself out after a few little 
prayer-meetings which I called among my childish 
friends. 

I soon began to see inconsistencies in those about 
me who called themselves Christians and were ac- 
cepted by the Church. This practice increased as 
I soon after entered the family of a loved aunt and 



2l6 FORTY WITNESSES. 

uncle who were childless, and held me as their own. 
These were the years of antislavery conflict. My 
relatives had been excommunicated from the ortho- 
dox Congregational Church on account of their out- 
spoken sympathy with the slaves. So ardent was 
their adherence to their great champion, William 
Lloyd Garrison, that with him their hearts revolted 
from the teachings of the Church, and from the 
Bible that was made the bulwark of slavery. My 
mind worked something in this way, " How is it 
that I see in these who regard not the Church or 
the Bible, such strong and active sympathy for the 
suffering and oppressed, just as Jesus preached and 
lived, while others, who are so stanch for the Church 
and its requirements, seem dead to these Christ-like 
demands?'' Thus I puzzled and quietly asked my- 
self, " What is truth? " declaring at the same time, 
" If ever I am a Christian I will be a real one." 
Overlying these depths was a love of gay society, 
and dawning womanhood found me still unsettled 
and questioning. I must not omit here that during 
all these passing years I attended Sabbath-school at 
the Congregational Church, as it was my mother's 
wish. I am sure it was due to the teaching of two 
faithful, devoted women, that the early call to Christ 
was not swallowed up in the maze of worldliness and 
unreality, from which the religion of antislavery 
was not powerful enough to keep. I very briefly 
pass over the years that introduced me to a life 



LUCRETIA A. CULLIS. 217 

of intense joy and satisfaction in all that the 
senses can crave, of the sudden and bitter grief that 
plunged me into utter darkness, and tell only of the 
supreme moment when God's infinite love pierced 
that darkness, and a heart utterly broken and help- 
less, alone in a foreign land, heard the long-neglected 
call of the patient, loving Christ, and responded 
without a thought of self, " Now, Lord, I will live 
for Thee ! " Then followed a long and lonely voy- 
age, a freed soul chained to a weary, helpless body, 
but " bearing all things, hoping all things," for the 
love of Christ. 

With the return to home and friends came blessed 
work for Jesus, and, without knowing the gospel of 
healing for the body, life was a continual testimony 
to the " quickening of the mortal body" by the 
" Holy Ghost that dwelleth in you." 

To read that u In the last days, saith God, I will 
pour out my Spirit" upon all flesh, and your sons and 
your daughters shall prophesy ..." became to 
my soul an immediate possession, my entire being 
responded to its power, for " out of the depths " 
had I cried, " My God, I will live for thee ! " 

" The victory that overcometh " seemed easy, it 
became a testimony that could not be withheld, 
and, woman that I was, with the Church traditions 
my birthright, there was a fire within that all the 
cold water without could not quench ; and, diffident 
as any real woman must be, I yet sought a church 



218 FORTY WITNESSES. 

where free vent could be given to the pent-up Holy 
Ghost, or I must cry, " Against thee, thee only, have 
I sinned ! " Little by little, God in his goodness led 
me to know little companies where his " Spirit had 
free course/' and finally into that large place where 
my husband and I have walked these twenty years 
in the " work of faith," knowing God's faithfulness 
to answer prayer, to deliver from temptation, to 
keep from evil, to preserve unto his heavenly king- 
dom, to make his service a rest, a joy ; where we 
are not continually digging up our hearts to see 
what roots are there, but sure that he who has 
" planted us in the likeness of his resurrection " is 
attending to the " growing up into him," " unto the 
measure of the fullness of the stature of Christ." 

It has become the normal condition to " be care- 
ful for nothing, but in every thing, by prayer and 
supplication, with thanksgiving, to let our requests 
be made known unto God, and the peace of God 
doth keep. ..." 

In the years before my faith became really active, 
in all time of need my Bible was not an unused 
book ; its words were food to my soul, many of which 
were stored in my memory, and I am positive that 
God was watering that which was of his own plant- 
ing, so that in the harvest-time of my sorrow, like 
goodly fruit the promises fell from the bough of 
the Tree of Life at the lightest real touch of faith. 
There was no digging necessary then ; the sub-soil 



LUCRETIA A. CULLIS. 219 

was laid bare, and quickly the Word became " spirit 
and life," the seal of the divine union. Thus is 
explained the easy natural reception of " The 
Promise of the Father." 

As I afterward came to know, my union with 
Christ was only kept unbroken as, by a momen- 
tary faith, I reckoned myself " dead unto sin and 
alive unto God." Not a passive, but an active 
faith, that heeds the injunction, to " watch and 
pray lest ye enter into temptation," so abiding in 
Him that the life of Christ is renewed day by day. 
This is no life of constraint, or anxious care, but 
a rest in his love. The bridegroom of my soul hath 
brought me to his banqueting house, and his ban- 
ner over me is love. My heart is his kingdom, and 
my eyes are unto him. 

" Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony 
of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner ; but be thou 
partaker of the afflictions of the Gospel according 
to the power of God ; who hath saved us, and called 
us with an holy calling, not according to our works, 
but according to his own purpose and grace, which 
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world be- 
gan." — 2 Tim. 1. 8, 9. 

LUCRETIA A. CULLIS. 

Beacon Hill Place, Boston, Mass., Aug. 16, 1887. 



220 FORTY WITNESSES. 



XXIX. 

CHARLES CULLIS, M.D. 

T WAS brought up in a very respectable church, 
j£> and knew nothing about conversion. At about 
the age of seventeen I felt that I ought to be a 
Christian. How, I did not know. Nobody told 
me. I supposed the only way would be to read the 
Bible and pray, and I went at it. When I was con- 
verted I do not know, but I am very sure I was. I 
don't know the date, for there was no particular 
sensation or emotion to mark it. Some four or five 
years* after that I met with a great sorrow, and I 
consecrated myself wholly to God. Soon after I 
thought about doing something for the Master, and 
it came about, in answer to prayer, in the establish- 
ment of a Consumptives' Home and other insti- 
tutions. My thought then was how to conduct 
this work — whether or not I should beg. The 
promises of God were brought very forcibly to 
my mind as to whether they were true or not. I 
puzzled over them for a few days, and the more I puz- 
zled and thought the more doubt began to come in, 
until one day I took my Bible between my two 
hands, and, holding it up, in my room alone, I said, 



CHARLES CULLIS, M.D. 221 

" I will believe every word inside of these two 
covers whether I understand it or not." 

From that moment to this I have never had the 
least shadow of doubt of the truth of God's word, 
and have acted upon the promises and lived ac- 
cording to them for nearly twenty-five years. 

This was my justified state, in which I found a 
good deal of comfort ; but how should I get rid of 
the natural temperament, and the failing, which was 
a great one with me, of getting irritated over very 
little things, and then getting vexed with myself 
because I did get irritated ! I had spent hours and 
hours- upon my knees, with tears running down my 
cheeks, praying that the Lord would help me to 
overcome this ; but he did not. 

One day, in prayer, the Lord's Prayer came home 
to me very blessedly by the Spirit, in its closing 
sentences, " Thine is the kingdom, and the power, 
and the glory." It flashed through my soul in a 
moment, u Thine is the power, and, Lord, I have 
been asking thee to help me to overcome this; 
thine is the power to do it all ; " and with joy un- 
speakable in my soul I got up from my knees 
praising God for victory. Whether this was my re- 
ception of sanctification or not I do not know. It 
is the only very marked experience of deliverance 
that I ever had. I believe that years ago he gave 
me a clean heart and baptized me with the Holy 
Ghost. There have been occasional slight lapses 



222 FORTY WITNESSES. 

through weakness of faith, but the light has been 
burning steadily from that day to this. My Saviour 
has become more and more precious to me, and I 
am conscious that the blood cleanseth, and the 
Holy Ghost abides. 

CHARLES CULLIS. 

Boston, Mass., Feb. 24, 1888. 



PART SECOND, 



PROF. ASA MAHAN, LL.D. 

(CONGREGATIONALISM) 

i|*|N Sabbath, November 9, 1884, I completed the 
T the eighty-fifth year of my life. The first 
seventeen years of this period were spent in the 
darkness of impenitency and sin, a state rightly rep- 
resented by the words " having no hope, and with- 
out God in the world." The following eighteen 
years I lived and walked in the dim twilight of that 
semi-faith which fully knows Christ in the sphere of 
"justification by faith," but knows almost nothing 
of him in the sphere of" sanctification by faith," and 
is absolutely ignorant of him in the promise, " he 
shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with 
fire." During the subsequent fifty years I have 
found grace " to walk with God " in that sphere of 
cloudless sunlight in which " we are complete in 
Christ," and know him as " our wisdom, righteous- 
ness, sanctification and redemption " — know him 
not only as " the Lamb of God who taketh away 
the sin of the world," but as " he that baptizeth 
with the Holy Ghost," and in which, consequently, 



224 FORTY WITNESSES. 

" God is our everlasting light, and the days of our 
mourning are ended." 

I am distinctly aware of the fact that should I, in 
speaking of the past, use a single word or sentence 
for self-glorification, I should grievously offend my 
God and Saviour, and in a corresponding degree 
wrong my own soul. My object will be to state 
merely such facts and characteristics of the periods 
of my life as may be interesting and instructive to 
the reader. 

Here permit me to say, in general, that while I was 
in public regard an unexceptionably moral youth, 
no individual ever did or ever can lead a more god- 
less life than I did. I never in a single instance, 
excepting at my mothers knee, offered a prayer to 
God in any form. I never entertained or expressed 
a sentiment of thanksgiving for a blessing received, 
or confessed a sin to my God ; nor did I ever do or 
avoid doing a single act from regard to his will, 
favor or displeasure. 

Two facts peculiarized my natural characteristics. 
On one side my nature was specially tender and 
sympathetic; while, on the other, it was equally 
characterized by the strongest and most positive 
temperaments and propensities. My temper, for 
example, was very easily excited, and when I 
was excited I was utterly reckless of all con- 
sequences in time or eternity, and of any pain 
that might be inflicted upon me. The thought 



PROF. ASA MAHAN, LL.D. 22$ 

of that temper so horrified me, while alone 
in my father's pasture, at the age of ten years, that 
I exclaimed aloud, u This temper will ruin me ! " 
From my early years the principle of ambition had 
continuous and absolute control over my daily 
thoughts and all my plans for future life. I would 
be an educated man, and in that sphere " a man of 
renown." Everywhere I openly avowed that pur- 
pose and made it a leading theme of conversation 
with those of my own age especially. In no youth 
that I ever knew did the principles of pride and self- 
will, the latter especially, exist with such strength as 
in myself. A more restless nature no one, as it seems 
to me, ever did possess. Those facts sufficiently in- 
dicate my natural disposition and temperament. 
My mother once called me to her and said, " The 
neighbors who visited here yesterday afternoon had 
a conversation about you. They all agreed that if 
you should live on to manhood you would become 
a very good or a very bad man. There would be 
nothing half-way about you." 

MY CONVERSION, AND THE SUCCEEDING EIGHTEEN 

YEARS. 

Of my conversion, I may say of a truth that it 

was, in the judgment of all who knew me, of a very 

marked and decisive character, being followed by a 

visible change in character and life, such as was 

seldom witnessed. During the first five years of my 
15 



226 FORTY WITNESSES. 

Christian life I was directly instrumental in origi- 
nating four important revivals of religion — three of 
these occurring in the schools which I taught, and 
these where no work of grace existed within hearing 
distance around. Nor was my ministry of eight 
years' continuance, during this period, a fruitless 
one ; no less, I suppose, than 2,000 souls being 
added to the churches through my instrumentality. 

MARKED CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FIRST EIGHT- 
EEN YEARS OF MY CHRISTIAN LIFE. 

1. There was at length, notwithstanding all my 
prayers and efforts to the contrary, a gradual fading 
out of that joy, and a conscious diminution of the 
ardency of that love, until I was fully at home in the 
sentiment of the hymn : 

" Where is the blessedness I knew 
When first I saw the Lord ? 

"What peaceful hours I once enjoyed, 

How sweet their memory still ; 
But they have left an aching void 

The world can never fill." 

That " aching void " remained a characteristic of 
my religious life up to the close of the period now 
under consideration. 

2. Not long after my religious life commenced 
I found, to my great sorrow and regret, that those 
sinful propensities which had held absolute control 



PROF. ASA MAHAN, LL.D. 227 

over me during the era of my impenitency still 
existed, and when temptation arose " warred in my 
members " with seeming undiminished strength, and 
were frequently " bringing me into captivity to the 
law of sin which was in my members." No be- 
liever, as it seems to me, ever did or ever can strive 
more resolutely and untiringly than I did to subdue 
and hold in subjection his evil propensities, or made 
less progress to effect his purpose than I did. 
When subject to strong and especially sudden 
temptation I found myself not more than a con- 
queror, but a groaning captive. For eighteen 
years, for example, I maintained a most determined 
war upon that evil temper; yet, when suddenly 
provoked, I found myself, and that invariably, be- 
trayed into words and acts of which I would have 
occasion to repent and confess as sins. How often 
did I exclaim, "O wretched man that I am! who 
shall deliver me from the body of this death?" 
Nor did my struggles and most determined resolu- 
tions issue in any seeming increase of power over 
these propensities. 

3. During these eighteen years, after the fading 
of my primal joys, I was from time to time troubled 
and not unfrequently agonized with painful doubts 
— doubts about my standing as a believer, about the 
truth of the Gospel, and a future state as revealed 
in the same. I seemed to myself to be among the 
number who feared the Lord, obeyed the voice of 



228 FORTY WITNESSES. 

his servants, and yet walked in darkness and had no 
light. 

4. As far as the inner life was concerned, I seemed 
to myself to be making no progress. I did consider- 
ably grow in knowledge, and in power as a preacher, 
but the light within did not brighten on toward the 
perfect day. 

5. The fear and dread of death, which had thrown 
such a deep gloom over my impenitent life, con- 
tinued to oppress me during the eighteen years 
under consideration, rendering my ministerial visi- 
tations to the sick and attendance upon funerals 
seasons of great trial and pensiveness. Thus far 
u through fear of death I had all my life-time been 
subject to bondage." 

6. I did know how to preach the Gospel to the 
impenitent, to lead inquiring sinners unto Christ for 
the pardon of sin ; and I could also u preach the 
doctrines " to believers, urge them to faithfulness in 
duty, to labor and pray for the conversion of sinners, 
and to liberal contributions for every good cause. 
In all these respects I had good success in my 
sacred calling; but when I reflected upon such pre- 
cepts and utterances as the following: " Feed my 
sheep," " Comfort ye the feeble-minded, support 
the weak," " I long to see you, that I may impart 
to you some spiritual gift, to the end that ye may 
be established," I said to myself, " There is a lack 
in me of essential qualifications for the highest 



PROF. ASA MAHAN, LL.D. 229 

functions of my sacred calling." I did not know 
how to conduct religious conversation among my 
people ; " to feed the flock of God." 

7. I saw there was an essential defect in my ex- 
perience and character as a Christian. I read and 
prayerfully pondered such passages as the following; 
namely, " The water I shall give him shall be in him 
a well of water springing up into everlasting life ; " 
" Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind 
is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee ; " 
" Whom having not seen, ye love, and in whom, 
though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice 
with joy unspeakable and full of glory ; " " In all 
these things we are more than conquerors through 
him that hath loved us," etc. As I read such pas- 
sages I said to myself, " My experience hardly 
approaches that which is here revealed as the com- 
mon privilege of all the saints." In the secret of my 
own spirit I said, " I will never cease inquiry and 
prayer until ' God shall open the eyes of my under- 
standing, that I may know the things which are 
freely given us of God/ ' After some years of most 
diligent inquiry and prayer my eyes were opened, 
and " I beheld with open face, as in a glass, the 
glory of the Lord," and " knew the love of Christ, 
which passeth knowledge," and merged " out of 
darkness into God's marvelous light." In that 
light I have lived and walked for the past fifty 
years. 



230 FORTY WITNESSES. 

When I reflected, as I often did, upon this up-and 
down sinning and repenting form of life on this 
lower plane, I frequently said to myself, " This does 
indeed seem to be a strange kind of service to offer 
to my God and Redeemer. I know, however, of no 
other way of leading a religious life but to do as I 
am doing — that is, renewing a broken purpose as 
often as broken, and after every fall to rise up and 
start anew with the same purpose as before." 
When a sense of weariness and despondency came 
over me in view of the facts of such a life, I often 
repeated to myself the words, " Faint, yet pursu- 
ing." 

During all those years such passages as the fol- 
lowing were a dead letter to me: passages in which 
" the very God of peace " promises, on condition 
that " he is inquired of by us to do it for us," that 
he will himself " sprinkle clean water upon us, and 
we shall be clean ; " that " he will turn his hand 
upon us, and purely purge away our dross, and take 
away all our sin ; " that he will " sanctify us wholly, 
and preserve our whole spirit and soul and body 
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ." 

When I apprehended that he was just as able to 
u sanctify me wholly" as to justify me fully, then, 
totally renouncing self and self-dependence, I 
entered upon the faith-life in its true and proper 
form. 



PROF. ASA MAHAN, LL.D. 23 I 

MY FIFTY YEARS' WALK WITH GOD. 

And here permit me to remark that there has 
been during this entire period a total disappearance 
of all those painful experiences which threw such a 
" disastrous twilight" over the preceding eighteen 
years of my Christian life. The peace and joy 
which, as an unfailing and unfading light, have 
filled and occupied these past fifty years have so 
far surpassed and eclipsed the " peaceful hours en- 
joyed " during the ardency of my " first love " that 
the latter is seldom " remembered or comes into 
mind." Not a throb of pain from the " aching 
void " so long left in my heart by the passing away 
of those " peaceful hours" has been experienced 
during these fifty years. On the other hand, that 
void has been occupied and filled by " the peace of 
God " during this entire period. 

Djring these fifty years I have almost, and I 
might say quite, ceased to be conscious of the 
existence and action of those evil propensities (lusts) 
which, during the preceding eighteen years, " warred 
in my members " and so often rendered me a groan- 
ing captive " under the law of sin and death," 
" the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus having 
made me free " from that old law. Immediately 
after my entrance into " the brightness of the 
divine rising " I became blissfully conscious that 
all my propensities were, by divine grace, put under 
my absolute control ; that I was no longer a groan- 



232 FORTY WITNESSES. 

ing captive, but the Lord's free man — free and 
divinely empowered to employ all faculties and pro- 
pensities, physical and mental, as " instruments of 
righteousness in the divine service." 

In but one single instance, for example, have I, 
during all these fifty years, been conscious at all of 
a movement of that evil temper, the strongest of all 
my propensities, and that was but fbr an instant, 
and occurred some thirty or forty years since, no 
one suspecting the fact but myself. Brother Finney, 
after our very intimate association of fifteen years' 
continuance at Oberlin, made the statement to a 
leading minister, a mutual friend of ours : u Brother 
Mahan never gets angry, nor does he ever, under 
the severest provocations or the most trying and dis- 
turbing providences, lose the even balance of his 
mind. ,, 

As the result of fifty years' experience and careful 
self-watchfulness I present myself as a witness for 
Christ, that " our old man may be crucified with 
him/' and " the body of sin destroyed, that hence- 
forth we should not serve sin." Were those old 
propensities against which I so long and vainly 
fought, and whose existence and action within I so 
long and deeply lamented, now warring or acting at 
all in the inner man, should I not be, sometimes, at 
least, conscious of the fact ? 

Nor has a shadow of one of those doubts which 
so frequently darkened my vision — doubts of my 



PROF. ASA MAHAN, LL.D, 233 

standing with God, of the truth of his word, and 
of an eternity to come — had for a moment a place 
in my experience since " the Sun of Righteousness 
rose upon my soul with healing in his w T ings." 

In the inner life also there has been during these 
fifty years, not as formerly, little or no conscious 
growth, but an increasing knowledge of my in- 
dwelling God and Saviour, and a consciously grow- 
ing " meetness for the inheritance of the saints in 
light/' as well as of the doctrine and the great revela- 
tions of the sacred word. Knowledge now, also, as it 
had not then, has a consciously transforming power, 
changing the moral being into the image of Christ, 
" from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the 
Lord." 

The fear and dread of death which threw such 
a deep gloom over my impenitence, and 'continued 
to oppress me during the eighteen years of my 
primal Christian life, has never approached my 
mind since " the brightness of the rising " at the 
commencement of the period now under consider- 
ation. O ! how sweet is the whisper of the angel, 

" In my room, 
A few more shadows and he will come." 

As long as Christ has work for me here I much 
prefer earth to heaven ; when that work shall have 
been finished I am possessed of but one desire, and 
that is, " To be absent from the body and present 



234 FORTY WITNESSES. 

with the Lord." My entrance into the higher life 
was attended by two important facts — a vast increase 
of effective power in preaching Christ to the impen- 
itent, and " the edification of the body of Christ ' 
(believers) became the leading characteristic aid 
luxury of my ministry. Religious conversions be- 
came as easy and spontaneous as the outflow c f 
water from a living fountain. How often have I had 
occasion to repeat the word of the apostle as appli- 
cable to myself: " Blessed be God, even the Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, 
and the God of all comfort ; who comforteth us in 
all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort 
them which are in any trouble, by the comfort 
wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." 

Should I designate what I regard as one of the 
leading, if not the leading, characteristics of my ex- 
perience and life during these fifty years I should 
refer to such Scriptures as the following : " Thou 
wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is 
stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee ; " 
" And the fruit of righteousness shall be peace, and 
the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance 
forever ; " " Be careful for nothing ; but in every 
thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving 
let your requests be made known to God. And the 
peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall 
keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." 
At intervals my joy in God becomes so full and 



PROF. ASA MAHAN, LL.D. 235 

overflowing that it seems as if the great deep of the 
mind is being broken up. But my peace, quietness, 
and assurance know no interruption. u In whatever 
state I am, I have learned therewith to be con- 
tent ; " my abiding-place being the center of the 
sweet will of my God. 

Should I be asked, " Have you not sinned during 
these many years? " my reply would be, " I set up 
no such pretension as that. This I do profess, how- 
ever : that I find grace to " serve Christ with a pure 
conscience/ But while ' I know nothing by (against) 
myself, yet am I not hereby justified, but He that 
judgeth me is God/ I do ' have confidence toward 
God/ because ' my heart condemns me not/ I 
have this evidence also, that the love I have does 
cast out all ' fear that hath torment/ In the 
consciousness of such facts I commit to Christ the 
keeping of my soul, and that in ' the full assurance 
of faith,' the full assurance of hope, i the full assur- 
ance of understanding/ " 

As the result of these fifty years' experience and 
widely-extended and careful observation, together 
with the most careful and prayerful study of every 
part of the w r ord of God which bears upon the sub- 
ject, I may add here that not a shadow of a doubt 
rests upon my mind of the absolute truth of these 
great doctrines, namely, the doctrines of justifi- 
cation by faith, sanctification by faith, and of the 
baptism of the Holy Ghost to be received by faith. 



236 FORTY WITNESSES. 

Soon after I became conscious of a personal union 

with Christ, M I in him and he in me," I inquired of 

the Lord whether such blissful union could be 

an abiding one. In specific answer to such inquiry 

this promise was, ail-impressively, presented to my 

faith, and has ever since abode in my heart as the 

light of my life ; namely, " The sun shall be no more 

thy light by day ; neither for brightness shall the 

moon give light unto thee ; but the Lord shall be 

unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. 

Thy sun shall no more go down ; neither shall thy 

moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thine 

everlasting light, and the day of mourning shall be 

ended." 

ASA MAHAN. 



FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL. 237 



II. 

FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL.* 

(CHURCH OF ENGLAND.) 

.J^NE day Frances received in a letter a tiny book 
T with the title "All for Jesus." She read it 
carefully. Its contents arrested her attention. It 
set forth a fullness of Christian experience and bless- 
ing exceeding that to which she had as yet attained. 
She was gratefully conscious of having for many 
years loved the Lord and delighted in his service ; 
but there was in her experience a falling short of the 
standard, not so much of a holy w T alk and conversa- 
tion as of uniform brightness and continuous enjoy- 
ment in the divine life. " All for Jesus " she found 
went straight to this point of the need and longing 
of her soul. Writing in reply to the author of the 
little book she said : "I do so long for deeper and 
fuller teaching in my own heart ; ' All for Jesus ' has 
touched me very much. I know I love Jesus, and 
there are times when I feel such intensity of love to 
him that I have not words to describe it. I rejoice, 
too, in him as my ' Master' and ' Sovereign/ but I 
want to come nearer still, to have the full realization 

* From a tract published by James H. Earle, Boston, written by the sister of 
Miss Havergal, and entitled F. R. H's Second Experience. 



238 FORTY WITNESSES. 

of John 14. 21, and to know ' the power of his res- 
urrection ' even if it be with the fellowship of his 
sufferings. And all this, not exactly for my own joy 
alone, but for others. So I want Jesus to speak to 
me, to say ' many things ' to me, that I may speak 
for him to others with real power. It is not knowing 
doctrine, but being with him, which will give this." 

God did not leave her long in this state of mind. 
He himself had shown her that there were "regions 
beyond " of blessed experience and service ; had 
kindled in her very soul the intense desire to go for- 
ward and possess them ; and now, in his own grace 
and love, he took her by the hand and led her into 
the goodly land. A few words from her corre- 
spondent on the power of Jesus to keep those who 
abide in him from falling, and on the continually 
present power of his blood (" the blood of Jesus 
Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin") were used 
by the Master in effecting this. Very joyously she 
replied: " I see it all, and I have the blessing." 

The " sunless ravines " were now forever passed, 
and henceforth her peace and joy flowed onward, 
deepening and widening under the teaching of God 
the Holy Ghost. The blessing she had received had 
(to use her own words) " lifted her whole life into 
sunshine, of which all she had previously experienced 
was but as pale and passing April gleams, compared 
with the fullness of summer glory." 

The practical effect of this was most evident in 



FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL. 239 

her daily, true-hearted, whole-hearted service for 
her King, and also in the increased joyousness of 
the unswerving obedience of her home life, the 
surest test of all. 

To the reality of this I do most willingly and 
fully testify. Some time afterward, in answer to 
my question, when we were talking quietly together, 
Frances said : " Yes it was on Advent Sunday, Dec. 
2d, 1873, I first saw clearly the blessedness of true 
consecration. I saw it as a flash of electric light, and 
what you see you can never tinsee. There must be 
full surrender before there can be full blessedness. 
God admits you by the one into the other. He 
himself showed me all this most clearly. You know 
how singularly I have been withheld from attending 
all conventions and conferences ; man's teaching has 
consequently had but little to do with it. First, I 
was shown that ' the blood of Jesus Christ his Son 
cleanseth us from all sin,' and then it was made 
plain to me that he who had thus cleansed me had 
power to keep me clean ; so I just utterly yielded 
myself to him and utterly trusted him to keep me," 

I replied that " it seemed to me if we did thus 
yield ourselves to the Lord we could not take our- 
selves back again, any more than the Levitical sac- 
rifices, once accepted by the priest, were returned by 
him to the offerer." 

u Yes," she rejoined, "just so. Still, I see there 
can be renewal of the surrender, as in our commun- 



240 FORTY WITNESSES. : 

ion service, where we say: * And here we offer and 
present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and 
bodies/ And there may also be a fuller surrender, 
even long after a surrender has once, or many times 
before, been made. He has brought me into the 
' highway of holiness/ up which I trust every day to 
progress, continually pressing forward, led by the 
Spirit of God. And I do indeed find that with it 
comes a happy trusting, not only in all great matters, 
but in all the little things also, so that I cannot say 
' so and so worries me/ 

" I would distinctly state, that it is only as and 
while a soul is under the full power of the blood of 
Christ that it can be cleansed from all sin ; that one 
moment's withdrawal from that power, and it is 
again actively because really sinning ; and that it is 
only as, and while, kept by the power of God himself 
that we are not sinning against him ; one instant of 
standing alone is certain fall ! But (premising 
that) have we not been limiting the cleansing power 
of the precious blood when applied by the Holy 
Spirit, and also the keeping power of our God? 
Have we not been limiting i John I. 7, by practically 
making it refer only to ' the remission of sins that 
are past ' instead of taking the grand simplicity of 
' cleanseth us from all sin ? ' ' All ' is all ; and as we 
may trust him to cleanse from the stain of past sins 
so we may trust him to cleanse from all present de- 
filement ; yes, all ! If not, we take away from this 



FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL. 24 1 

most precious promise, and, by refusing to take it in 
its fullness, lose the fullness of its application and 
power. Then we limit God's power to ' keep ;' we 
look at our frailty more than at his omnipotence. 
Where is the line to be drawn beyond which he is 
not able? The very keeping implies total helpless- 
ness without it, and the very cleansing most dis- 
tinctly implies defilement without it. It was that 
one word 'cleanseth' which opened the door of a 
very glory of hope and joy to me. I had never seen 
the force of the tense before, a continual present, 
always a present tense, not a present which the next 
moment becomes a past. It goes on cleansing, and 
I have no words to tell how my heart rejoices in it. 
Not a coming to be cleansed in the fountain only, 
but a remaining in the fountain, so that it may and 
can go on cleansing. 

•"Why should we pare down the commands and 
promises of God to the level of what we have 
hitherto experienced of what God is ' able to do/ or 
even of what we have thought he might be able to 
do for us? Why not receive God's promises, noth- 
ing doubting, just as they stand ? ' Take the shield 
of faith, whereby ye shall be able to quench all the 
fiery darts of the wicked ;' ' He is able to make all 
grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all 
sufficiency in all things ;- and so on, through whole 
constellations of promises, which surely mean really 

and fully what they say. 
16 



242 FORTY WITNESSES. 

" One arrives at the same thing, starting almost 
from anywhere. Take Philippians 4. 19, ' your 
need ;' well, what is my great need and craving of 
soul? Surely it is now (having been justified by 
faith, and hnving assurance of salvation,) to be made 
holy by the continual sanctifying power of God's 
Spirit ; to be kept from grieving the Lord Jesus; to 
be kept from thinking or doing whatever is not 
accordant with his holy will. 

44 Oh what a need is this! And it is said ' He 
shall supply all need ;' now shall we turn round and 
say ' all ' does not mean quite all ? Both as to the 
commands and the promises, it seems to me that 
anything short of believing them as they stand is 
but another form of ' yea hath God said ? ' 

" Thus accepting, in simple and unquestioning 
faith, God's commands and promises, one seems to 
be at once brought into intensified views of every- 
thing. Never, O never before, did sin seem so 
hateful, so really ' intolerable,' nor watchfulness so 
necessary, and a keenness and uninterruptedness of 
watchfulness too, beyond what one ever thought of, 
only somehow different, not a distressed sort but a 
happy sort. It is the watchfulness of a sentinel 
when his captain is standing by him on the ramparts, 
when his eye is more than ever on the alert for any 
sign of the approaching enemy, because he knows 
they can only approach to be defeated. Then, too, 
the ' all for Jesus ' comes in ; one sees there is no 



FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL. 243 

half way; it must be absolutely all yielded up, be- 
cause the least unyielded or doubtful point is sin, 
let alone the great fact of owing all to him. And 
one cannot, dare not, temporize with sin. I know 
and have found that even a momentary hesitation 
about yielding, or obeying, or trusting and believ- 
ing, vitiates all ; the communion is broken, the joy 
vanished ; only, thank God, this never need continue 
even five minutes ; faith may plunge instantly into 
1 the fountain open for sin and uncleanness,' and 
again find its power to cleanse and restore. Then 
one wants to have more and more light ; one does 
not shrink from painful discoveries of evil, because 
one so wants to have the unknown depths of it 
cleansed as well as what comes to the surface. 
' Cleanse me thoroughly from my sins ;' and one 
prays to be shown this. But so far as one does see 
one must ' put away sin ' and obey entirely ; and here 
again his power is our resource, enabling us to do 
what without it we could not do. 

" One of the intensest moments of my life was 
when I saw the force of that word ' cleanseth.' The 
utterly unexpected and altogether unimagined sense 
of its fulfillment to me, on simply believing it in its 
fullness, was just indescribable. I expected nothing 
like it short of heaven. I am so thankful that, in 
the whole matter, there was as little human instru- 
mentality as well could be, for certainly two sen- 
tences in letters from a total stranger were little. 



244 FORTY WITNESSES. 

I am so conscious of his. direct teaching and guid- 
ance through his word and Spirit in the matter that 
I cannot think I can ever unsee it again. I have 
waited many months before writing this, so it is no 
new and untested theory to me ; in fact, experience 
came before theory and is more to me than any 
theory. 



MRS. MARY D. JAMES. 245 



III. 

MRS. MARY D. JAMES.* 

(METHODIST.) 

^IDORN in Trenton, New Jersey, August 7, 18 10, 
X died in New York city, October 4, 1883. She 
was reared in a Christian home and was an unusually 
thoughtful, conscientious child. She was clearly 
converted at a little more than ten years of age, 
February 18, 182 1. Of her early experience she 
wrote : " My peace and joy in the Lord abounded, 
and for some weeks I felt nothing contrary to per- 
fect love/' Afterward she " felt the rising of de- 
praved nature, which, though subdued, still remained, 
and was constantly striving to gain the ascendency 
and usurp the throne of which the adorable Re- 
deemer had possession. To prevent sin from hav- 
ing dominion over me was my unceasing effort, and 
my soul was pained and grieved exceedingly to 
feel the workings of this vile enemy within." 

A few months after her entrance upon the Chris- 
tian life the Rev. Joseph Lybrand became her 

* This account was prepared for this volume by the son and biographer of Mrs^ 
James. As far as possible the narration is given in her own words, as indicated by 
quotation marks, the passages in the third person having been so written as a 
matter of her taste. 



246 FORTY WITNESSES. 

pastor, and " most clearly, forcibly and constantly 
preached the doctrine of a full salvation as the 
privilege of all the children of God." He also took 
pains to explain this experience to " little Mary," 
the youngest lamb of his flock. She writes : " From 
the hour in which it was first presented as my 
privilege I sought it with unremitting diligence. 
I presented myself to God i a living sacrifice/ in 
the bonds of an everlasting covenant, and began to 
reckon myself to be ' dead indeed unto sin, but 
alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord/ 
This, I think, was about six months after my con- 
version. I did not at that time receive the evidence 
that the work was fully wrought." 

In her diary she wrote, January 3, 1823: "I 
thirst for full redemption in the blood of the Lamb. 
O Jesus, give me power to lay hold of thy promise 
by faith. I cannot rest till I am wholly sanctified." 

Two days later she attended a prayer-meeting in 
which she was called upon to pray, but " was 
tempted to refuse." " As the leader of the meeting 
said the second time, i Pray, sister Mary, God will 
help you/ she looked up to Jesus, casting herself 
upon him, and began her supplication. Having 
uttered only a sentence or two her spirit was 
caught up into the infinite presence, and, for more 
than an hour, she was talking with Jesus face to 
face, unconscious of all earthly things. Her body 
was prostrated as if lifeless. It was during that 



MRS. MARY D. JAMES. 247 

memorable hour that the all-cleansing blood was 
applied and her heart was made pure." 

January 10, 1823, this child, then less than thir- 
teen years of age, wrote in her diary : " Glory to 
God in the highest! He has heard my prayers, and 
this night my soul rejoices in that ' perfect love ' 
which ' casteth out fear.' O how happy I am ! 
Where shall I begin to praise my Saviour for his 
goodness to me? It is now more than a year since 
I enlisted under the banner of Jesus, and he has 
kept me by his power until this time. I have had 
many temptations and trials, and sometimes have 
not lived as near to God as I ought to have done, 
but, blessed be his dear name, he has upheld me by 
his gracious hand, and I am at this moment a wit, 
ness that his precious blood cleanseth from all sin." 

While yet a young woman, Mary Yard wrote in 
a letter to a friend : " To describe the difference 
between my feelings at the time of my justification 
and sanctification would be impossible. Indeed, I 
believe that sanctification is but the extension or 
fullness of the former blessing, the brightness of 
meridian splendor compared to the dawn. . . . But 
the figure will not hold good any further than the 
sun's meridian, for the Christian having the fullness 
of perfect love still goes onward. l Higher mounts 
his soul and higher/ His capacities enlarge, and he 
abounds in love yet more and more." 

Twice the brightness of the evidence of this ex- 



248 FORTY WITNESSES. 

perience was dimmed. While yet a little child she 
listened to the advice of older persons and ceased 
to speak definitely of the grace given her, and " had 
a season of spiritual darkness, which, however, was 
of short duration. " Again in 1835, upon her removal 
to Mount Holly, N. J., as the wife of Mr. Henry B. 
James, she ceased to bear testimony specifically in re- 
gard to full redemption. " She sincerely believed her- 
self justifiable in withholding her testimony to the 
power of the blood that cleanseth. For a long 
time she pursued this course without compunctions 
of conscience, but wondering why she was shorn of 
strength when she attempted to speak or pray, 
and why she felt that there seemed an in- 
tervening mist, half concealing the brightness of 
her Saviour's face, while she felt the same ardent 
love to him and devotion to the interests of his 
kingdom. The consciousness that his presence 
was a less vivid realization caused her deep sorrow/' 
This sorrow was increased when Mrs. James learned 
that her course in this regard had hindered others. 
In 1840, during a visit to the home of Dr, and Mrs. 
W. C. Palmer, in New York, this matter was set 
forever at rest. " From this visit she returned to 
her home full of holy energy and strong purpose 
to work for God. Her glowing soul longed to 
show forth his praise who so gloriously revealed 
himself to her." She at once began to speak in 
unmistakable terms of the doctrine and experience — 



MRS, MARY D. JAMES. 249 

a course from which she never deviated during the 
forty-three years that remained to her on earth. 
She never professed to be " sinless/' or " perfect," or 
" holy," but loved, on all occasions when she thought 
it would honor her Master, to confess that Jesus 
saved her completely and filled her with his perfect 
love. In a letter to a friend she wrote : " In the 
retrospect of sixty-two years it gives me unspeak- 
able pleasure to know that my entire life has 
been consecrated to his blessed service. O, if I 
had served him more faithfully, more acceptably ! 
It is the sweetest joy of my heart to look up to 
my Saviour and say : 

* Thy righteousness alone 

Can clothe and beautify, 
I wrap it round my soul ; 

In it I live and die.' " 

After threescore years of useful, happy living in 
the consciousness of this full salvation, she sat 
one morning talking with those " of like precious 
faith," in regard to the great salvation, when she 
"was not, for God took her." 



2 SO FORTY WITNESSES. 



IV. 

REV. WILLIAM BUTLER, D.D.* 

(METHODIST.) 

FROM childhood I was connected with the Epis- 
copal Church — an attendant on its services and 
Sunday-school, and diligent in all its duties ; so that 
I " profited above many " of my class associates, 
and bore off, because of my superior knowledge of 
the word of God, several of the valuable premiums 
in the yearly examinations. No doubt of the safety 
and graciousness of my condition had ever entered 
my mind. I was taught, and I believed it, that in 
baptism " I was made a member of Christ, a child 
of God and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. " 
What more could I need? I regarded myself as 
safe for eternity. Had any one asked " a reason of 
the hope that was in me," or why I laid this flatter- 
ing unction to my soul so confidently, I would have 
appealed to the book and replied, " My Catechism 
tells me so ; I was made all this * in my baptism.' ' 
On this unscriptural dogma I was risking all my 
future welfare. Of repentance, faith in the Lord 

* This experience was compiled from Dr. Butler's writings and submitted to 
him. Dr. Butler was born in 1818. 



REV. WILLIAM BUTLER, D.D. 25 1 

Jesus, the new birth, or the witness of the Spirit, I 
knew nothing and had never heard. Truly 

" A form of godliness was mine, 
The power I never knew." 

But a compassionate God was preparing another 
agency to undeceive me, to open my eyes and turn 
me from darkness to light, that I might receive for- 
giveness of my sins and an inheritance among them 
that are sanctified, all through the instrumentality 
of a blessed woman of God, the wife of one of her 
majesty's judges (Sydney Mary Crampton), who had 
recently moved into our neighborhood. 

She walked out every morning and distributed 
tracts and talked to people about religion. I found 
myself sincerely hoping that I should not fall into 
her hands or be talked to by her. I did not wish 
to be disturbed as to my religious condition. On 
inquiring as to her appearance, she was represented 
to me as tall, refined, and delicate looking. It was 
singular how uncomfortable I became by the pres- 
ence of this u Methodist " in our neighborhood, and 
how much I began to fear that I might come in 
contact with her, and that she might talk to me 
about my religious state. 

It was only a few mornings after hearing of the 
lady that I rose earlier than usual to attend to some 
business, and, going along the road near St. Valori, 
I saw her coming toward me attended by her maid. 



252 FORTY WITNESSES. 

From the description I felt assured this must be 
the lady ! I at once slackened my pace in order to 
get time to decide what I should do to escape. The 
wall on either side of the road was some six feet 
high and I could not jump over. It looked cowardly 
to turn back and escape by walking away from her, 
so I concluded to take the alternative which re- 
mained, that, as the sidewalk was fully five feet wide, 
I would, as we approached each other, step to the 
very outside limit and .leave her a wide berth to 
pass on. Quickening my steps to carry out my pur- 
pose, as I came near I saw, to my confusion, that she 
did not intend to move off to the inside, but was 
going to stop in the center of the path and so gently 
bar my way ! She afterward told me that before I 
reached her the Spirit of God seemed to say to her 
heart, " Speak to this young man." So, as she 
stopped, I had no alternative but to do the same, 
and then I ventured to lift my eyes and look at her. 
How amazed I was, and ashamed as well, that I 
should have imagined her — u this Methodist " — 
something of a horror, to be afraid of on meeting ! 
How sweet her face was, and such a smile ! She 
could not but see that I was alarmed at her pres- 
ence and that I looked rather wild. But she spoke 
and said in such a gentle way, and in tones that I 
shall never forget, u Good-morning, young man ; 
may I say a few words to you?" My trepidation 
at once calmed down, and I looked again at that 



REV. WILLIAM BUTLER, D.D. 253 

saintly face and answered, "Yes, madam, you may 
say whatever you wish." She saw that she had 
gained her first point, and stepped nearer till she 
could touch my sleeve with that white hand, so thin 
and wasted by the incipient consumption which four 
years after was to lay her in the grave. 

She then said, " I want to ask you this question : 
Do you pray ? " Had she asked me, " Do you say 
your prayers? " I could have answered with great 
confidence. But she did not say or mean that, 
though herself an Episcopalian and well acquainted 
with the prayer-book. I had never offered an ex- 
tempore prayer — could not have done it. My heart 
had not learned to utter its own cry to God accord- 
ing to its own feelings. I had only repeated the 
language of other people, whether it fully expressed 
my own condition or not. It was wonderful what 
clearness there was in her question ; how the Spirit 
of God carried her meaning into my mind. So, 
though in such darkness, I saw at once what she 
meant when she asked me if I prayed. Being too 
manly to tell a falsehood I promptly answered, " No, 
madam, I do not." She drew a deep sigh and then 
said, " Well, if you don't pray, what is to become of* 
your soul? " Up to that hour I had supposed that 
my soul was all right, that I was safe for eternity. 
But the question went through my heart and woke 
me up to a suspicion, which immediately became a 
consciousness, that I was unsaved ; that my soul was 



254 FORTY WITNESSES. 

in danger ! ' Her tender words had " opened my 
eyes." My ecclesiastical salvation vanished as in a 
moment, and I saw myself in the sight of God a 
sinner, guilty and polluted. I hung my head and 
was silent. 

She saw how God was helping her, and touched 
my arm again. How glad I am that she touched 
me! She said, " Now listen to me ! " She talked, 
perhaps, less than fifteen minutes. When she ceased 
I had learned more about true religion than I had 
gained from all the sermons I had ever heard. The 
Holy Spirit sealed every word upon my conscience, 
and I became so submissive to the guidance of God 
through her that it seemed as though a thread 
would have led me anywhere to seek salvation. She 
closed the interview earnestly exhorting me not to 
lose an hour in carrying out my resolution to seek 
the Lord, and made me promise to call upon her 
that evening, and then used these words : " Young 
man, God is not only able and willing to save your 
soul, but he is also willing to make you the means 
of the salvation of other people. " These words 
startled me. Realizing, as I then did, the depth of 
my own unworthiness, I could not imagine that God 
would add personal usefulness in my case to per- 
sonal salvation. 

We parted, but I was so determined to lose no 
time in seeking the Lord that I let the worldly bus- 
iness go for that morning, and walked on to where 



REV. WILLIAM BUTLER, D.D. 255 

I knew there was a gate leading into the field, and 
there I entered, and behind that wall dropped on 
my knees and pleaded with God for mercy. The 
blessed Spirit was helping me and I found words to 
express myself. Then and there I gave myself to 
Christ as Saviour and Lord forever, and implored 
God to make me such a Christian as this lady had 
taught me I must become in order to be saved. 
That evening I called upon her, and she further in- 
structed and prayed with. me. She also put into 
my hands the same precious books that had helped 
herself — Carvosso's Life and Mrs. Rogers's Life — 
telling me to read them daily along with my Bible, 
and keep on praying earnestly until I felt that the 
Lord had converted my soul. 

But I had a hard conflict, and a long time elapsed 
ere I entered into the light and joy of salvation. 
My dear friend was my only helper. No Meth- 
odistic or other evangelical ministry w r as within my 
reach, nor any of our precious means of grace. I 
was " in a dry and thirsty land." The wicked scoffed 
at me, and some, from whom better things might 
have been expected, pointed the finger of scorn at 
" this new Methodist." But I held on, though with- 
out any comfort or joy, resolved not to give up 
seeking, let them persecute as they might. My 
convictions of sin were very keen. Often I could 
neither eat nor drink, nor even sleep. Sometimes I 
was so distressed that I would rise at midnight and 



256 FORTY WITNESSES. 

walk the fields, and look up at the stars, and cry out 
to God above them to come down to my help and 
grant me mercy. Satan was doing all he could to 
buffet and discourage me, so that frequently I 
almost despaired of salvation. 

Winter arrived and my friend returned to the city 
of Dublin, and I was left alone to wrestle with all 
these difficulties. But after a while I followed her 
to the city, and on the ensuing Sabbath morning I 
accompanied her to the Methodist chapel, the first 
non-conformist service I had ever attended. How 
simple and apostolic it all appeared ! The hearty 
singing, the extempore prayers, the experimental 
preaching, all delighted me. My confidence was 
won. I felt that I had found here the very help 
my poor discouraged soul required, and it was easy 
to conclude at once, as I did, that these people 
should be my people for the rest of my life. 

I joined a class. I was no longer alone, without 
sympathy or assistance, but was helped especially 
by hearing the experience of others. 

One Sunday afternoon while in a meeting for 
Christian fellowship, held in the vestry of Hendrick 
Street chapel, I was enabled to rest on Christ as my 
personal Redeemer. All the burden rolled off my 
heart and I felt and knew that I was saved ! I rose 
to my feet and at once acknowledged what the Lord 
had done for my soul, and those present rejoiced 
with me. This was in 1838. 



REV. WILLIAM BUTLER, D.D. 257 

My precious friend was made happy, and praised 
God on my behalf. She now urged upon me the 
duty of mental culture, and advised the keeping a 
journal of my experience and humble efforts to do 
good. But, above all, she counseled the devout 
and regular perusal of the word of God, with spe- 
cial reference to the attainment of that further state 
of grace to which, as a child of God, I had now 
become entitled. I was consequently led to join 
one of those little bands which met to pray for 
this blessing of purity of heart, that " perfect love 
which casteth out fear." To be sanctified through- 
out body, soul and spirit now became my intense 
desire. I longed to be saved " to the uttermost," 
and to know for myself what it was to a w r alk in the 
light, as he is in the light," and experience that 
4t the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from 
all sin." I did not trouble myself about definitions of 
the doctrine, the experience of which I was seeking, 
no more than I did a few w r eeks before, when God 
granted me the blessing of justification. I simply 
accepted the words above quoted in their manifest 
meaning, and entreated the Holy Spirit to grant me, 
in his own way and manner, what they implied. 
Mr. Wesley's sermon on " The Repentance of 
Believers," and his " Plain Account of Christian 
Perfection," and also Mr. Fletcher's treatise, greatly 
helped me ; so that I had an intelligent apprehen- 
sion of what I required and what the word of God 
17 



258 FORTY WITNESSES. 

offered to my hope. With all sincerity and strong 
desire I sought it daily ; I might say, hourly. At 
one of our little meetings a peculiar spirit of ear- 
nestness for the blessing sought became manifest. 
We were kneeling round the center-table in the 
parlor, and one after the other prayed, and some one 
suggested that we should sing, as we knelt, and with 
all the faith we had, these two verses : 

" O that it now from heaven might fall, 

And all my sins consume ! 
Come, Holy Ghost, for thee I call ; 

Spirit of burning, come ! 

" Refining fire, go through my heart ; 

Illuminate my soul ; 
Scatter thy life through every part, 

And sanctify the whole." 

As the singing closed all became conscious of the 
surrounding presence of the holy Sanctifier whom 
we had invoked. I can describe my own feelings 
very imperfectly, for this was something beyond 
what I had ever known before. It seemed to be 
light and life and love combined so sweetly, and in 
such an indescribable manner, resulting in 

" The speechless awe that dares not move 
And all the silent heaven of love." 

Christ had become, beyond all former experience, 
every thing to me, while I seemed to sink at his 
blessed feet, " lost in astonishment and love." Those, 



REV. WILLIAM BUTLER, D,D. 259 

in any denomination, who have sought and found 
this grace will understand what I am trying to nar- 
rate better than I am able to describe it. 

The effect upon me was clear. I had henceforth 
more delight in devotion, closer intimacy with God, 
greater stability of heart and character, and more 
deadness to the world. I was conscious of an in- 
crease of calmly fervent zeal to lay out my life to do 
any thing that my blessed Master might require of 
me. Perfect peace — " the peace of God that passeth 
all understanding " — kept my heart and mind from 
day to day. I was free from excitement, from fluct- 
uation, and from all fear, resting sweetly in the calm 
sunshine of the New Testament salvation, and liv- 
ing " a life of faith in the Son of God," who, I knew, 
loved me and had given himself for me. 

" O, days of heaven, 

And nights of equal praise ! " 

WILLIAM BUTLER. 



260 FORTY WITNESSES. 



ETHEL PERKINS. 

(METHODIST,) 

[The following experience of a little girl, 12 years old, was written by herself 
on the request of her friend, the editor, and no one was permitted to make any 
suggestions to her as regards the punctuation, the choice or the spelling of words, 
the order of thought, or the forms of expression. She did not know what the 
experience was wanted for. The experience is given just as she wrote it. — S.O.C] 

T WAS born June 24 1875. I think my christian 
£> experience began when I joined the Presby- 
terian church in Fredonia New York. 

I thought that I wanted to be good. So I tried 
but trying did not seem to do any good ; I kept 
trying and breaking down and then making a new 
resolution and trying again. I asked Jesus to help 
me but I did not expect him to or look for his help. 
Sometimes I would give up and then I would think 
that I would try once more. So it went on. 

I joined the church and yet was not sure that I 
was saved. I prayed Jesus to forgive my sins but I 
did not understand that I needed to be forgiven 
and saved. 

It did not change while we staid in Fredonia 
which was about a year and a half. 

We went to Leavenworth and it went on just the 
same. We were in Leavenworth four or five 



ETHEL PERKINS. 261 

months before we came down here. We arrived 
here the 15th of August. A Methodist preacher 
came here the first part of October (1886) whose 
name was Mr. Shiras. The week after Brother 
Shiras came here we had special meetings every 
evening and at the first meeting we had I saw my 
need of a Savior. That night as I lay in the bed 
thinking and praying I heard a voice as plain as I 
ever heard any one speak saying " Thy sins are 
forgiven thee.'' I think I must have felt a great 
deal happier than the people were in the olden 
times when Jesus healed them. After that I some- 
times spoke crossly and impatiently and did some 
things that were not right. I thought at first that 
it could not be that I was saved but I was so sure 
that Jesus had forgiven me that I could not think 
that long, but I had to keep going to Jesus to be 
forgiven. 

I heard Brother Shiras talk about the blessing of 
holiness and I wanted that for I did want to live so 
that I would not have to keep going to Jesus to be 
forgiven. 

I did not want it at first enough to ask anyone 
how to get it. I waited till I could not wait any 
longer and then I asked Brother Shiras how to get 
it and he told me plainly so that I could understand. 
I went away trusting Jesus to so fill me with his 
love that I would not want to do anything wrong. 
Next morning when I woke I was full, heaped up 



262 FORTY WITNESSES. 

and brimming over with love and happiness. I 

knew that Jesus was in my heart and that he would 

keep watch and if any kind of evil should look in he 

would be sure to see it and tell me about it. I was 

so happy Oh so very happy. About two weeks 

after one morning the joy was gone but I trusted 

Jesus and three days after this the joy came back. 

The peace and love had not been gone at all. 

I did not speak in the meetings and the last 

meeting we had I did not speak in and the morning 

after I felt all my peace and joy was gone and I 

asked Jesus to show me what was the matter and 

that morning the chapter read was the fourteenth 

of St Mark, and as Brother Shiras read those words 

all the joy and peace came back. 

ETHEL PERKINS. 
Simon a, Fla., June 26, 1887. 



BISHOP C. D. FOSS, LL.D. 263 



VI. 

BISHOP C. D. FOSS, LL.D. 

(METHODIST.) 
MY EXPERIENCE IN SICKNESS. 

, f*|N the first anniversary of an injury which seemed 
T slight, but proved very serious, I feel moved to 
offer special thanksgiving to Him " in whose hand 
my breath is.'' " What shall I render unto the Lord 
for all his benefits? " I can at least'swell the chorus 
of his praise by the addition of one unworthy note. 
The first Sabbath in February, 1882, I spent in a 
prairie village, to which I had volunteered to go in 
the hope of being a peace-maker between the 
factions of a discordant church. After preaching 
on Saturday evening and Sunday morning, holding 
a love-feast, administering the Lord's Supper, and 
addressing the Sunday-school, while I was walking 
rapidly toward the place for the evening service, 
within fifty feet of the door a misstep gave my foot 
a fearful wrench and (as was not known until three 
months later) broke the smaller bone of the leg. 
After a few minutes of excruciating pain I managed 
to hobble into the hall, and, sitting in a chair, 
preached on personal religious experience — a sub- 



264 FORTY WITNESSES. 

ject on which I am better informed now than I was 
then. 

On February 5 my health seemed perfect, as it 
had almost always been. For twenty-seven years 
no sickness had kept me in my bed a single day. 
Then came ten weeks of failing strength, alarming 
symptoms in my foot, the slow and painfully reluc- 
tant surrender of one after another of my Confer- 
ences and other appointments for work ; then 
typhoid fever, seventy-five days in my room (include 
ing a month of oblivion) ; then the slow, O how 
slow ! creeping back from the gates of the grave. 

I had always preached a pretty high doctrine of 
providential and gracious help, of resignation and of 
joyful acquiescence in the will of God ; too high, some 
of my friends thought. I was sometimes told that 
experience would very likely moderate my state- 
ments on these subjects. Now I know what I then 
believed. The teaching was true. I have been 
promoted into a higher class in the school of Christ, 
the sufferer's, and I have no fault to find with the 
great Teacher. 

One of the delightful experiences of my sickness 
(not creditable to me as being a surprise) was that 
in every strait I always found Jesus on the spot 
ahead of me. I never had to wait for him nor look 
around for him. Such assurances as these kept 
chiming in my soul like silver bells : " Even there 
shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall 



BISHOP C. D. FOSS, LL.D. 265 

hold me," " A very present help in trouble/' " Be- 
fore they call I will answer," " Lo, I am with you 
alway." At no time did I have to struggle for com- 
fort of mind or for any thing else. Every thing was 
ready at my hand, more than I would have dared to 
ask. When I was slipping downward little by little 
toward the grave, sickness and death seemed to me 
the easiest and most natural things in the world; 
but when the outlook changed, and convalescence 
began, this life looked magnificent. I would not 
have changed places with Gabriel ; to be able to 
lay hold of God's work again with both hands 
would make earth a heaven. 

When, after long confinement, the fever smote 
me, and I thought it probable that the beginning 
of the end had come, I was taken "up into a 
mountain apart," and found my Tabor. A certain 
Wednesday was my diamond of days, and its splen- 
dor was followed by the serener glory of other days 
scarcely less memorable. I was filled and thrilled 
with an altogether indescribable sense of the absolute 
verity of the great Christian beliefs and of the mag- 
nificent privilege of having any place in the king- 
dom of God. It was superb to be, do, suffer any 
thing to please him. The dying words of Dr. Rob- 
erts, the well-known Baltimore local preacher, came 
often to my lips. When an anxious friend who 
feared that he would quickly exhaust his failing 
strength said to him, "Don't shout so; whisper 



266 FORTY WITNESSES. 

what you wish to say," he answered, " Let angels 
whisper ; redeemed men must shout." Many a time 
the walls of my chamber echoed those words in no 
whispered tone. And yet my friends know that my 
religious experience, while sometimes highly emo- 
tional, is rarely demonstrative. 

A month later, at another very critical stage of my 
illness, I was led most delightfully in a very different 
path. Again and again it occurred to me what a 
happy outcome of my sickness it would be if the 
Saviour should come into my room in visible form 
and instantly heal me. I knew if he should come 
and say, " What wilt thou ?" my quick reply would 
be, " Lord make me perfectly whole and perfectly 
holy." I did not pray for such a miracle, nor wish 
it ; but day after day in my quiet afternoon hours 
the inspiring thought kept coming, " How grand 
a testimony it would be if, in these skeptical times, I 
might go forth proclaiming that in a single moment 
the audible word of the visible Christ had perfectly 
cured me of a severe sprain a broken bone, typhoid 
fever, and prostrating weakness; and if my testi- 
mony should be so confirmed by that of physicians 
and friends as to be lifted above the possibility of 
scientific doubt ! " At length, when this thought 
had grown so familiar that the realization of it 
would hardly have surprised me, there came in place 
of it a strong impression (like an audible voice, 
and yet there was no voice), sealing on my mind as 



BISHOP C. D. FOSS, LL.D. 267 

never before the words, " Thomas, because thou hast 
seen me thou hast believed. Blessed [I have always 
thought that means more blessed] are they that 
have not seen and yet have believed. " The de- 
licious fancy of a possible miracle gave place to the 
solid fact of the greater blessedness of that dispen- 
sation of providence and grace which can transform 
and glorify all suffering; and this was a wondrous 
sweetener of my long trial. 

" O that men would praise the Lord for his good- 
ness, and for his wonderful works to the children of 

men!" 

C. D. FOSS. 

Minneapolis, Minn., Feb. 5, 1883. 



268 FORTY WITNESSES. 



VII. 

DWIGHT L. MOODY.* 

(CONGREGATIONAL.) 

MT the summer school for Bible study, held at 
/ Mount Hermon, Moody addressed the boys' 
class and answered questions. 

The subject of " Induement of Power " was 
before the class ; the necessity of it for service was 
urged. Moody said, " No need to stop your work 
in order to wait for this induement of power, but 
do not be satisfied until you get it. 

" Let it be the cry of your heart day and night. 
. . . Young men, you will get this blessing when 
you seek it above all else. There will be no 
trouble about knowing when you have got it. 

" We should not have to wait long for this bap- 
tism of the Spirit if we did not have to come to 
the end of ourselves. This sometimes is a long 
road. 

" If God were to indue us with power when we 
were full of conceit we should become vain as pea- 
cocks, and there would be no living near us." Mr. 
Moody then told his experience — a thing which he 
is not greatly given to do. 

* Taken from The Christian^ London, England, August 26, 1886. 



DWIGHT L. MOODY. 269 

"This blessing came upon me," he said, "suddenly, 
like a flash of lightning. For months I had been 
hungering and thirsting for power in service. I had 
come to that point that I think I would have died 
if I had not got it. I remember I was walking the 
streets of New York. I had no more heart in the 
business I was about than if I had not belonged to 
this world at all. Right there, on the street, the 
power of God seemed to come upon me so won- 
derfully that I had to ask God to stay his hand. I 
was filled with a sense of God's goodness, and felt 
as though I could take the whole world to my 
heart. I took the old sermon that I had preached 
before without any power ; it was the same old 
truth, but there was a new power. Many were 
impressed and converted. This happened years 
after I was converted myself. 

" It was in the fall of 187 1. I had been very anx- 
ious to have a large Sunday-school and a large con- 
gregation, but there were few conversions. I 
remember I used to take a pride in having the 
largest congregation in Chicago on a Sunday night. 
Two godly women used to come and hear me. 
One of them came to me one night after I had 
preached very satisfactorily, as I thought. I 
fancied she was going to congratulate me on my 
success ; but she said, ' We are praying for you/ 
I wondered if I had made some blunder, that they 
talked in that way. 



2/0 FORTY WITNESSES. 

"Next Sunday night they were there again, evi- 
dently in prayer while I was preaching. One of 
them said, ' We are still praying for you/ I could 
not understand it, and said, i Praying for me ! Why 
don't you pray for the people ? I am all right/ 
i Ah ' they said, ' you are not all right ; you 
have not got power ; there is something lacking, 
but God can qualify you/ I did not like it at first, 
but I got to thinking it over, and after a little time 
I began to feel a desire to have what they were 
praying for. 

" They continued to pray for me, and the result 
was that at the end of three months God sent this 
blessing on me. I want to tell you this : I would 
not for the whole world go back to where I was 
before 1871. Since then I have never lost the 
assurance that I am walking in communion with 
God, and I have a joy in his service that sustains 
me and makes it easy work. I believe I was an 
older man then than I am now ; I have been grow- 
ing younger ever since. I used to be very tired 
when preaching three times a week; now I can 
preach five times a day and never get tired at all. 
I have done three times the work I did before, and 
it gets better and better every year. It is so easy 
to do a thing when love prompts you. It would be 
better, it seems to me, to go and break stone than 
to take to preaching in a professional spirit/' 



PROF. T. C. UPHAM, D.D. 2? I 



VIII. 

PROF. T. C. UPHAM, D.D.* 

(CONGREGATION ALIST. ) 

TN the spring of 1 815, in connection with a remark- 
et) able revival which took place in Dartmouth Col- 
> lege, I suppose that I experienced religion. About 
three years afterward I made a profession of re- 
ligion in the Congregational Church. Accordingly, 
I have been a public professor of religion ever since 
that time. During the greater part of that long 
period I believe that I have striven earnestly for 
high religious attainments. For various reasons^ 
however, and particularly the discouraging influence 
of the prevalent doctrine that personal sanctification 
cannot fully take place till death, I did not per- 
manently attain the object of my desires. Some- 
times, it is true, I advanced much, and then again 
was thrown back, living what may be called the 
common Christian life of sinning and repenting, of 
alternate walking with God and devotedness to the 
world. This method of living was highly unsatis- 
factory to me, as it has often been to others. It 
seemed exceedingly dangerous to risk my soul in 

* From Pioneer Experiences. 



272 FORTY WITNESSES. 

eternity in such a state as this. In this state of 
mind I was led, early in the summer of 1839, by a 
series of special providences, which it is here un- 
necessary to detail, "to examine the subject of 
personal holiness as a matter of personal realization. 
I examined the subject, as I thought, prayerfully, 
candidly, and faithfully — looking at the various 
objections as well as the multiplied evidences — and 
came, ultimately, to the undoubting conclusion that 
God required me to be holy, that he had made 
provision for it, and that it was both my duty and 
privilege to be so. The establishment of my belief 
in this great doctrine was followed by a number of 
pleasing and important results. 

1. As soon as I had become established in the 
belief of present holiness I felt a great increase of 
obligation to be holy. Many secret excuses for sin, 
which had formerly paralyzed my efforts, now lost 
their power. The logic in the case was very simple. 
God requires me to be holy now, and as he can re- 
quire nothing unreasonable I am under obligation 
to be holy now. I could not turn to the right hand 
nor to the left. I knew instinctively and most 
certainly that God did not and could not require 
impossibilities. I considered his command as in- 
volving an implied promise to help me to fulfill it. I 
felt, moreover, that every moment's delay was adding 
transgression to transgression, and was exceedingly 
offensive in the sight of God. Accordingly, within a 



PROF. T. C. UPHAM, D.D. 273 

very few days after rejecting the common doctrine 
that sanctification is fully attainable only in the 
article of death, and receiving the doctrine of the 
possibility and duty of present holiness, I conse- 
crated myself to God, body and spirit, deliberately, 
voluntarily, and forever. I had communicated my 
purpose to no human being. There was nothing 
said ; nothing written. It was a simple volition ; a 
calm and unchangeable resolution of mind ; a pur- 
pose silently but irrevocably made, and such as any 
Christian is capable of making. But, simple as it 
was, I regard it as a crisis in my moral being which 
has, perhaps, affected my eternal destiny. I acknowl- 
edge that I took this important step in comparative 
darkness— that is to say, clouds were round about 
me, and I went by faith rather than by sight ; but 
I had an unwavering confidence in God, that he 
would in his own time and way carry me through 
and give me the victory. This important decision 
was made in the summer of 1839, an< ^ about the 
middle of July. Two almost immediate and marked 
results followed this act of consecration. The one 
was an immediate removal of that sense of condem- 
nation which had followed me for many years and 
had filled my mind with sorrow. The other result, 
which also almost immediately followed, was a great 
increased value and love of the Bible. It required 
no great effort of reasoning to perceive that, in doing 

the whole will of God, which had become the fixed 

18 



274 FORTY WITNESSES. 

purpose of my life, I must take the Bible for my 
guide. As I opened and read its pages from day to 
day, its great truths disclosed themselves to my 
mind with an impressiveness and beauty unknown 
before. And this result, independently of the aid 
implied in the biblical promise that those who do 
the will of God shall understand his communication, 
was what might have naturally and reasonably been 
expected. Before this time, reading every where 
my own condemnation, I had insensibly but volun- 
tarily closed my eyes to the doctrine of present 
holiness which shines forth so brightly and contin- 
ually from the sacred pages. But now I found holi- 
ness every where, and I felt that I began to love it. 
2. I now proceed to mention some other changes 
of mind which I soon passed through. In Decem- 
ber of this year, 1839, * visited the city of New 
York on business which brought me into commu- 
nication with certain persons who belonged to the 
Methodist denomination. I was providentially led 
to form an acquaintance with other pious Methodists, 
and was exceedingly happy in attending a number of 
meetings which had exclusive reference to the doc- 
trine of holiness and to personal holy experience. 
In these meetings I took the liberty, although com- 
paratively a stranger, to profess myself a believer in 
the doctrine of holiness and a seeker after it. And 
I found myself greatly encouraged and aided by the 
judicious remarks, the prayers and the sympathies 



PROF. T. C. UPHAM, D.D. 275 

of a number of beloved Christian friends. As I 
now perceive, the great difficulty at this time in the 
way of my victorious progress was my ignorance of 
the important principle that sanctification, as well as 
justification, is by faith. By consecrating myself to 
God I had put myself into a favorable condition to 
exercise faith ; but I had never understood and felt 
the imperative necessity of this exercise, namely of 
faith as a sanctifying instrumentality. My Meth- 
odist friends, to whom this view was familiar, gave 
me, in the spirit of Christian kindness, much in- 
struction and assistance here, for which I desire to 
be grateful to them. I found that I must give up 
the system, already too long cherished, of walking 
by signs and manifestations and sensible experi- 
ences, and must commit every thing, in light and in 
darkness, in joy and in sorrow, into the hands of 
God. Realizing, accordingly, that I must have 
greater faith in God as the fulfiller of his promises 
and as the pledged and everlasting portion of those 
who put their trust in him, and aided by the kind- 
ness and supplications of Christian friends, I in some 
degree (and perhaps I may say in a very consider- 
able degree) gained the victory. I shall ever rec- 
ollect the time. It was early on Friday morning, 
the 27th of December. The evening previous had 
been spent in deeply interesting conversation and 
in prayer on the subject of holiness, and with par- 
ticular reference to myself. Soon after I awoke in 



2j6 FORTY WITNESSES. 

the morning I found that my mind, without having 
experienced any very remarkable manifestations or 
ecstasies, had, nevertheless, undergone a great moral 
revolution. I was removed from the condition of a 
servant and adopted into that of a son. I believed 
and felt, in a sense which I had never experienced 
before, that my sins were all blotted out, were 
wholly forgiven, and that Christ was not only the 
Saviour of mankind in general, but my Christ, my 
Saviour in particular, and that God was my Father. 
As I have observed, I had no ecstasy, but great and 
abiding peace and consolation. 

3. I mark here another step in the progress of 
this important contest. Under the influence of the 
feelings which I have just described I consecrated 
myself anew to God in a more specific and solemn 
manner. I now made a written record of .my con- 
secration, which I had not done before. But, while 
it seemed to me that I sincerely endeavored to give 
up all, I was unable as yet, in consequence, proba- 
bly, of some lingering remains of unbelief, or because 
God in his wise sovereignty was pleased to try a 
little longer the faith which he had given me, to 
speak confidently of my sanctification. I would take 
the liberty to say here that I do not consider con- 
secration and sanctification the same thing. Conse- 
cration is the incipient, the prerequisite act. It is 
the laying of ourselves upon the altar ; but it is not 
till God has accepted the sacrifice, and wrought 



PROF. T. C. UPHAM, D.D. 277 

upon us by the consuming and restoring work of 
the Holy Spirit, that we can be said to be sancti- 
fied. It is true that the one may immediately and 
almost simultaneously follow the other; and this 
will be the case where faith in God is perfect. 
But this was not the case with me. But I 
was now, however, by the grace of God, in a 
position where I had new strength, and could plead 
the promise with much greater confidence than for- 
merly. God had given me great blessings, such as 
a new sense of forgiveness, increased love, a clear 
evidence of adoption and worship, closer and deeper 
communion with himself, but I felt there was some- 
thing remaining to be experienced. 

In this state of mind, not having fully attained 
the object of my expectations and wishes, but still 
greatly in advance of my former Christian ex- 
perience, ajid with a fixed determination to per- 
severe, I left the city of New York about the mid- 
dle of January, 1840. Immediately after my arrival 
at my residence, in the State of Maine, I united with 
some Methodist brethren in establishing a meeting 
similar to those which had benefited me so much 
in New York, for the purpose of promoting personal 
godliness, and which was designed to be open to 
persons of all denominations of Christians. This 
meeting was very encouraging to me and to others. 
Nevertheless, I was not able for about two weeks to 
profess the personal experience and realization of 



278 FORTY WITNESSES. 

the great blessing of holiness as it seemed to be ex- 
perienced and realized in others. The principal 
difficulty, as I daily examined my heart to see how 
the case stood between my soul and God, seemed to 
be a consciousness, while other evils were greatly or 
entirely removed, of the remains of selfishness. In- 
deed, at this particular time the selfish principle, 
or rather the principle of self-love, in its inordinate 
and unholy exerctee, seemed to be stimulated to 
unwonted activity. The remains of every form of 
iaternal opposition to God appeared to be centered 
in one point and to be prosecuted in one aspect. I do 
not know that I was ever more troubled, during so 
short a space of time, with feelings of this nature. I 
do not mean to say that I was more selfish at this 
time than ever before ; by no means. But the 
existence and horrible nature of this state of mind 
were more fully brought to view. I took this en- 
couragement, however : that God was perhaps now 
showing me, as he often does when he is about to 
bless with entire holiness of heart, the very root of 
evil ; and I was sincerely desirous to see it and to 
know it, that it might be slain in his presence. The 
good hand of the Lord was pleased to sustain my 
faith in this sharp contest. My continual prayer to 
God was that he would enable me to love him with 
all my heart. I knew not fully what the nature of 
perfect love was ; but my prayer was that this love, 
whatever might be its nature and its inward mani- 



PROF. T. C. UPHAM, D.D. 279 

festation, might in God's time and way be realized 
within me. And in the answer to this prayer, when- 
ever it should be given, I confidently foresaw the 
termination of this internal conflict ; for selfish- 
ness can never exist in union with perfect love. 

On Sabbath evening, the 2d of February, I was 
greatly afflicted in mind ; tossed to and fro as in a 
tempest ; and it seemed to me that I could not 
easily stand where I was, but must either advance 
or retreat. But God's grace was sufficient. My 
faith remained unshaken, and on Monday morning 
I thought I could say with great calmness and as- 
surance, " Thou hast given me the victory." I was 
never able before that time to say with sincerity and 
confidence that I loved my heavenly Father with 
all my soul and with all my strength. But, aided 
by divine grace, I have been enabled to use this 
language, which involves, as I understand it, 
the true idea of Christian perfection or holiness, 
both then and ever since. There was no intellect- 
ual excitement, no very marked joy, when I reached 
this great rock of practical salvation. The soul 
seemed to have gathered strength from the storm 
which it had passed through on the previous night, 
and, aided by a power from on high, it leaped for- 
ward, as it were by a bound, to the great and de- 
cisive mark. I was distinctly conscious when I 
reached it. The selfish exercises which had recent- 
ly, and, as it were, by a concentrated and spasmodic 



280 FORTY WITNESSES. 

effort, troubled me so much, seemed to be at once 
removed ; and I believed, and had reason to believe, 
that my heart, presumptuous as it may appear to 
some to say it, was now purified by the Holy Spirit 
and made right with God. I was thus, if I was not 
mistaken in my feeling, no longer an offering to the 
world, but sanctified unto the Lord ; given to him 
to be his, and no longer my own ; redeemed by a 
mighty power, and filled with the blessing of " per- 
fect love." 

4. The enemy might now be said to be cast out 
of the interior of the castle. Nevertheless, he has 
never ceased his hostility. He has laid his snares 
and presented his temptations. It would be pre- 
sumption to assert postively that I had never in any 
case, nor for any length of time, yielded to his 
power. But I can testify abundantly to the good- 
ness of God's grace, that he has heard the voice of 
my prayer and in a wonderful manner preserved 
me. Certain it is that my spiritual life has been a 
new life. There is calm sunshine upon the soul. 
The praise of God is continually upon my lips. 

I have continually what seems to me to be the 
witness of the Holy Spirit — that is to say, I have a 
firm and abiding conviction that I am wholly the 
Lord's, which does not seem to be introduced into 
the mind by reasoning nor by any methods what- 
ever of forced and self-made reflection, and which I 
can ascribe only to the Spirit of God. It is a sort 



PROF. T. C. UPHAM, D.D. 28 1 

of interior voice, which speaks silently but effectively 
to the soul and bids me be of good cheer. At 
times, especially on the 14th of February, 1840, I ex- 
perienced some remarkable operations on my mind, 
which made a profound and lasting impression. 
Language would be but a feeble instrument in de- 
tailing them., and I will not attempt it. Indeed, I 
do not know but I must say with the apostle, 
" whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot 
tell." But in view of what I then experienced and 
have experienced at other times I cannot help say- 
ing with the apostle, " God hath also sealed us, and 
given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." 

I could speak of many remarkable deliverances and 
supports in time of mental trial. God has ever been 
with me, in time of trouble, a " faithful God." But 
these, and many other things which have called forth 
the deep gratitude of my heart, I am compelled to 
omit. I cannot refrain from saying, however, that 
almost from the very moment of my obtaining the 
victory over those selfish feelings which have been 
spoken of, I was distinctly conscious of a new but 
powerful and delightful attraction toward the divine 
mind. This, I believe, is a common form of interior 
experience among those who have enjoyed the 
blessing of sanctification. I perceived and felt very 
distinctly that there was a central existence, full of 
all glory, toward which the Spirit was tending. I 
could realize the meaning of the Psalmist, " As the 



282 FORTY WITNESSES. 

hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my 
soul after thee, O God. 5 ' I felt like an imprisoned 
bird when the string is cut that bound it to the 
earth, and which soars upward and spreads its wings 
to the skies. So conscious have I been that inor- 
dinate self-love has been the great cause of the 
separation between my soul and God that the very 
idea of self as distinct from God is almost painful to 
me. When self is destroyed, the divine union, 
which sanctified hearts only know, takes place. If 
I know any thing I know most certainly that the 
true resting place of my soul is and must be in the 
infinite mind ; that it is not and cannot be anywhere 
else. Perhaps no part of the Scriptures, during the 
more recent periods of my experience, has more af- 
fected me than the prayer of the Saviour for his di- 
ciples " That they all may be one ; as thou, Father, 
art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one 
in us." It is difficult for me to conceive of any 
heaven but God's presence ; of any hell but his 
absence. I realize that the cup of my happiness is 
full, whatever may be my personal trials and sor 
rows, whenever and wherever my heavenly Father 
is glorified in me. Accordingly it is my earnest 
and constant prayer that my will may be wholly and 
forever lost in the will of God, and that I may 
never know self any more except as the instrument 
of divine glory. 



REV. ALFRED COOKMAN. 283 



IX. 

REV. ALFRED COOKMAN.* 

(METHODIST.) 

T WAS born January 4, 1828. When just turned 
JD ten years of age I realized clearly and satis- 
factorily the converting grace of God. I shall 
never forget the 12th of February, 1838, the birth- 
day of my eternal life. Connecting myself imme- 
diately with the church of my fathers I laid down 
a rule always to attend my class-meeting. To a 
rigid observance of this rule during my boyhood 
and youth I gratefully attribute the fact that I 
have always retained my place in the Church of 
God. 

At the age of eighteen I took up the silver 
trumpet that had fallen from the hand of my faith- 
ful father, and began to preach, in my humble way, 
the everlasting Gospel. Quitting, about this time, 
one of the happiest of homes to enter the itinerant 
work, my excellent mother remarked, just upon the 
threshold of my departure, " My son, if you would 
be supremely happy, or extensively useful in your 
ministry, you must be an entirely sanctified servant 

* From Pioneer Experiences, 



284 FORTY WITNESSES. 

of Jesus." It was a cursory suggestion, perhaps 
forgotten almost as soon as expressed ; neverthe- 
less, applied by the Divine Spirit, it made the pro- 
foundest impression upon my mind and heart. 

My mother's passing but pointed remark fol- 
lowed me like a good angel as I moved to and fro 
in my first sphere' of itinerant duty, namely, Attle- 
borough Circuit, Philadephia Conference. Fre- 
quently I felt that I should yield myself to God and 
pray for the grace of entire sanctification ; but then 
the experience would lift itself in my view as a 
mountain of glory, and I would say, " It is not for 
me. I could not possibly scale that shining sum- 
mit, and, if I might, my besetments and trials are 
such I could not successfully maintain so lofty a 
position." 

While thus exercised in mind, Bishop Hamline, 
accompanied by his devoted and useful wife, came 
to Newtown, one of the principal appointments on 
the circuit, that he might dedicate a neat church 
which we had been erecting for the worship of 
God. Remaining about a week, he not only 
preached again and again, and always with the 
unction of the Holy One, but took occasion to con- 
verse with me pointedly respecting my religious 
experience. His gentle and yet dignified bearing, 
devotional spirit, beautiful Christian example, di- 
vinely-illuminated face, apostolic labors, and fatherly 
counsels, made the profoundest impression on my 



REV. ALFRED COOKMAN. 285 

mind and heart. I heard him as one sent from 
God ; and certainly he was. 

One week-day afternoon, after a most delightful 
discourse, he urged us to seize the opportunity 
and do what we had often desired, resolved, and 
promised to do ; namely, as believers, yield our- 
selves to God as those who were alive from the 
dead, and from that hour trust constantly in Jesus 
as our Saviour from all sin. I said, u I will ; with 
the help of the Almighty Spirit, I will." Kneeling 
by myself I brought an entire consecration to the 
altar — that is, Christ. 

But some one will say, " Had you not dedicated 
yourself to God at the time of your conversion ? " 
I answer, " Yes ; but with this difference ; then I 
brought to the Lord Jesus powers dead in tres- 
passes and sins; now I brought powers permeated 
with the new life of regeneration. I presented 
myself * a living sacrifice/ Then I gave myself 
away; but now, with the increased illumination 
of the Spirit, I felt that my surrender was more 
intelligent, specific and careful — it was my hands, 
my feet, my senses, my attributes of mind and 
heart, my hours, my energies, my reputation, my 
kindred, my worldly substance, my every thing. 
Then I was anxious respecting pardon ; but now 
my desire and faith compassed something more ; 
I wanted the conscious presence of the Sanctifier in 
my heart." 



286 FORTY WITNESSES. 

Carefully consecrating every thing, I covenanted 
with my own heart and with my heavenly Father 
that this entire but unworthy offering should 
remain upon the altar, and that henceforth I would 
please God by believing that the altar (Christ) 
sanctifieth the gift. Do you ask what was the 
immediate effect? I answer, peace — a broad, deep, 
full, satisfying, and sacred peace. This proceeded 
not only from the testimony of a good conscience 
before God, but likewise from the presence and 
operation of the Spirit in my heart. Still I could 
not say that I was entirely sanctified, except as I 
had sanctified or set apart myself unto God. 

The following day, finding Bishop and Mrs. 
Hamline, I ventured to tell them of my consecra- 
tion and faith in Jesus, and in the confession 
realized increasing light and strength. A little 
while after it was proposed by Mrs. Hamline that 
we spend a little season in prayer. Prostrated 
before God, one and another prayed, and while 
thus engaged God for Christ's sake gave me the 
Holy Spirit as I had never received it before, so 
that I was constrained to conclude, and confess, 

" Tis done ! Thou dost this moment save, 

With full salvation bless ; 
Redemption through thy blood I have, 

And spotless love and peace." 

The great work of sanctification that I had so 
often prayed and hoped for was wrought in me — 



REV. ALFRED COOKMAN. 287 

even in me. I could not doubt it. The evidence 
in my case was as direct and indubitable as the 
witness of sonship received at the time of my 
adoption into the family of heaven. O it was 
glorious, divinely glorious ! 

Need I say that the experience of sanctification 
inaugurated a new epoch in my religious life? O, 
what blessed rest in Jesus ! what an abiding expe- 
rience of purity through the blood of the Lamb ! 
what a conscious union and constant communion 
with God ! what increased power to do or suffer 
the will of my Father in heaven ! what delight in 
the Master's service ! what fear to grieve the 
infinitely holy Spirit ! what love for, and desire to 
be with, the entirely sanctified ! what joy in relig- 
ious conversation ! what confidence in prayer ! 
what illumination in the perusal of the sacred word ! 
what increased unction in the performance of 
public duties ! 

O, that I could conclude just here these allu- 
sions to personal experience with the simple adden- 
dum that my life to the present has answered to 
the description of " endless progression, steadied 
by endless peace !" Fidelity to truth, however, 
with a solicitude that others may profit by my 
errors, constrains me to add another page of per- 
sonal testimony. 

Have you never known a sky full of sunshine, 
the promise of a beautiful day, subsequently 



288 FORTY WITNESSES. 

obscured by lowering clouds ? Have you never 
known a jewel of incalculable value to its owner 
lost through culpable carelessness ? Alas ! that so 
bright a morning in my spiritual history should not 
have shone more and more unto the perfect day ; 
that I should under any circumstances have care- 
lessly parted with this pearl of personal experience. 

Eight weeks transpired — weeks of light, strength, 
love, and blessing. Conference came on. I found 
myself in the midst of beloved brethren. Forget- 
ting how easily the infinitely holy Spirit might be 
grieved, I allowed myself to drift into the spirit of 
the hour, and after an indulgence in foolish joking 
and story-telling realized that I had suffered 
serious loss. To my next field of labor I pro- 
ceeded with consciously-diminished spiritual power. 

Perhaps to satisfy my conscience I began to 
favor the arguments of those who insisted that 
sanctification as a work of the Holy Spirit could 
not involve an experience distinct from regenera- 
tion. O, how many precious years I wasted in 
quibbling and debating respecting theological dif- 
ferences, not seeing that I was antagonizing a doc- 
trine that must be " spiritually discerned, " and the 
tendency of which is manifestly to bring people 
nearer to God ! 

Meanwhile I had foolishly fallen into the habit 
of using tobacco — an indulgence which, besides the 
palatable gratification, seemed to minister both to 



REV. ALFRED COOKMAN. 289 

my nervous and my social nature. Years elapsed. 
When I would confront the obligation of entire con- 
secration the sacrifice of my foolish habit would 
be presented as a test of obedience. I would con- 
sent. Light, strength, and blessing were the 
result. Afterward temptation would be presented. 
I would listen to suggestions like these, " This 
is one of the good things of God." " Your relig- 
ion does not require a course of asceticism." "This 
indulgence is not specially forbidden on the New 
Testament page." " Some good people whom you 
know are addicted to this practice." Thus seek- 
ing to quiet an uneasy conscience I would drift 
back into the old habit again. After awhile I 
began to see that the indulgence at best was doubt- 
ful for me, and that I was giving my carnality 
rather than my Christian experience the benefit of 
the doubt. It could not really harm me to give it 
up, while to persist in the practice was costing me 
too much in my religious enjoyments. 

I found that, after all my objections to sanctifi- 
cation as a distinct work of grace, there was, 
nevertheless, a conscious lack in my own religious 
experience. It was not strong, round, full, or 
abiding. I frequently asked myself, " What is that 
I need and desire in comparison with what I have 
and profess ? " I looked at the three steps insisted 
upon by the friends of holiness; namely, 1. Entire 

consecration ; 2. Acceptance of Jesus moment by 
19 



29O FORTY WITNESSES. 

moment as a perfect Saviour ; 3 . A meek but 
definite confession of the grace received — and I 
said, " These are scriptural and reasonable duties. " 
The remembrance of my experience in Newtown 
supplied an overwhelming confirmation of all this, 
and at the same time a powerful stimulus in the 
direction of duty. 

" What then ? " I said, " I will cast aside all pre- 
conceived theories, doubtful indulgences, culpable 
unbelief, and retrace my steps/' 

Alas ! that I should have wandered from the 
light at all and afterward wasted so many years in 
vacillating between self and God. Can I ever for- 
give myself? O, what a bitter, bitter memory ! 
The acknowledgment that I here make, con- 
strained by candor and a concern for others, is 
among the greatest humiliations of my life. If I 
had the ear of those who have entered into the 
clearer light of Christian purity, I would beseech, 
entreat, supplicate, and charge them, with a broth- 
er's interest and earnestness, that they be warned 
by my folly. O ! let such consent to die, if it were 
possible, a hundred deaths, before they willfully 
depart from the path of holiness ; for if they 
retrace their steps there will still be the remem- 
brance of original purity tarnished, and that will 
prove a drop of bitterness in the cup of their 
sweetest comfort. 

Eternal praise to my long-suffering Lord ! Nearly 



REV. ALFRED COOKMAN. 29 1 

ten years have elapsed since, as the pastor of 
Greene Street Church, in the city of Philadelphia, 
I again dedicated my all carefully and fully to 
God ; the consecration, of course, including the 
doubtful indulgence. I said, " I will try and 
abstain for Christ's sake. I would do any thing for 
his sake ; and certainly I can consent to this self- 
denial that Jesus may be glorified. " Again I 
accepted Christ as my Saviour from all sin ; real- 
ized the witness of the sanctifying Spirit ; and 
since then I have been walking " in the light as God 
is in the light," have fellowship with the saints, 
and humbly testify that " the blood of Jesus cleans- 
eth me from all sin." 

" As ye have, therefore, received Christ Jesus the 
Lord, so walk ye in him " — that is, as I understand, 
continually repeat those exercises or duties you 
performed when you accepted Christ as your all- 
sufficient Saviour. I received him in a spirit of 
entire consecration, implicit faith, and humble 
confession. The constant repetition of these three 
steps enables me to " walk in him." I cannot 
afford, even for a single moment, to remove my 
offering, to fail in looking unto Jesus, or to part 
with the spirit of confession. 

Thus I have honestly unfolded some personal 
experiences in connection with the doctrine and 
grace of sanctification. The recital humbles me in 
the dust as it calls up the memory of years of vacil- 



2g2 FORTY WITNESSES. 

lating and unsatisfactory religious life ; but it also 
fills me with the profoundest gratitude for that 
abounding mercy which not only bore with me, 
but brought me to see again my privilege in the 
Gospel, and now, for more than ten years, has been 
preserving me in the experience, and blessing me 
in the profession, of this great grace. Precious 
reader, I now offer you this testimony ; but, 
remember, before it meets your eye it has been 
carefully placed upon the altar that sanctifieth the 
gift, and an earnest prayer offered that it may be 
blessed to your spiritual profit. 



REV. J. O. PECK, D.D. 293 



X. 

REV. J. O. PECK, D. D.* 

(METHODIST.) 

T WAS converted in 1856, in Vermont, on a mount- 
£) ain, alone, amid a terrific-thunder storm, after 
only a few minutes* meditation upon the goodness 
of God. 

Shortly afterward I felt clearly a call to the minis- 
try. I went to Newbury Seminary, Vt, but for two 
years did not join the Church, as I was trying to 
shake off the duty of the ministry. But in 1858 God 
so signally revealed himself to me in gracious power 
at Lyndonville camp-meeting that I promised Him 
I would preach the Gospel. I returned to school, 
prepared a sermon at once, and determined to put 
the seal to my vow without delay. I told one of 
the professors my convictions and purposes, and he 
invited me to go with him to Mclndoe's Falls the 
next Sabbath and preach. I did so, though I was 
not then a member of the Church, and had no 
license to preach but the inward call of the Holy 
Ghost. I forthwith, however, joined the Church in 
full, without probation, and was given a local preach- 
er's license. 



♦Taken from Divine Life and submitted to Dr. Peck for revision. — Ed. 



294 FORTY WITNESSES. 

In i860, while in college at Amherst, Mass.,. I 
joined the New England Conference and supplied 
neighboring churches till I graduated, in 1862, and 
was appointed to Chelsea, Mass. I was pastor for 
the next ten years* in Chelsea, Lowell, Worcester, 
and Springfield. While pastor in Springfield, in 
1872, a memorable incident in my experience occur- 
red. I had never, consciously, lost my zeal or de- 
votion to the Gospel ministry, nor the evidence of 
my assured salvation in Jesus Christ. God never 
left me a single year without a gracious revival, in 
which many souls were given as the seals of my 
ministry. Never had my pastorate been more fa- 
vored with the divine blessing than at Springfield ; 
but in the summer of 1872 a deep heart-hunger that 
I had never known began to be realized. I hardly 
knew how to understand it. I had not lost spirit- 
uality, as far as I could judge of my condition. I 
longed for I scarcely knew what. I examined my- 
self and prayed more earnestly, but the hunger of 
my soul grew more imperious. I was not plunged 
in darkness or conscious of condemnation ; yet the 
inward cravings increased. The result of these 
weeks of heart-throes was a gradual sinking of self, 
a consuming of all selfish ambitions and purposes, 
and a consciousness of utter emptiness. Then arose 
an unutterable longing to be filled. I waited upon 
the Lord, but he delayed his coming. 

No matter how or by whom, but I had been prej- 



REV. J. O. PECK, D.D. 295 

udiced against the National Camp-meeting Asso- 
ciation. I avoided their meetings ; but in the midst 
of my longings of soul their meeting at Round Lake 
in 1872 occurred. I had not thought of attending, 
but in the midst of the meeting a conviction was 
borne in upon me, as clear and unmistakable as my 
identity, that if I would go to that meeting and 
confess how I was hungering after more of salvation 
I would be filled. To my surprise, and as a proof 
that my sincerity was genuine, I found no prejudice 
rising up, but a longing to go. I conferred not 
with flesh and blood, got excused from officiating 
at an important wedding, and started the next day. 
I arrived near evening, and as I had but that 
night and the next day before returning to my pul- 
pit I resolved to waste no time. At once I told 
the leaders of the meeting my purpose and errand. 
I seemed to be near to Peniel, and my soul was im- 
patient. After a sermon (by whom I forget, for men 
were eclipsed in my yearning to see " Jesus only,") 
I asked the privilege of saying a few words. Many 
old friends were present, but I felt no hesitation, so 
fully was I possessed by the desire to know " the 
length, breadth, depth and height " of the love of 
God. I frankly told my errand there, and sought 
the prayers of all. I told them I wanted "the 
fullness" that night, and felt it was the Divine 
will to give it that hour. I then descended to the 
altar and knelt with others before the Lord. I 



296 FORTY WITNESSES. 

knew what I came for, believed it the will of God to 
bestow it, and cast myself fully upon the promises 
of God. By simple trust I was enabled to take 
Christ as my sufficiency to fill and satisfy my hun- 
gry soul. The instant I thus received Christ as my 
" wisdom, righteousness^ sanctification and redemp- 
tion, " the stillness and emotionlessness of absolute 
quiet permeated my entire being. I came near be- 
ing deceived, for I had anticipated being filled with 
boundless ecstasy and joy. My enthusiastic and 
highly emotional temperament foretokened this, and 
I had already discounted such rapture. The tempter 
was by my side instantly, and suggested seductively, 
"All feeling has left you, the Spirit is withdrawn, 
and you are doomed to disappointment." But 
quick as thought came my reply, " With or without 
feeling, I here and now take Christ as my all and in 
all ! " I knew that moment he was my complete 
Saviour ! At once the most delicious experience 
was mine that I can conceive ! No joy, no rapture ; 
but something sweeter, deeper than any thing before 
known — " the peace of God that passeth all under- 
standing !" It settled in upon me deeper and deeper, 
sweeter and sweeter, till I seemed " filled with all 
the fullness of God." I was ineffably satisfied. I 
could not shout or speak. Words would have been 
mockery of that peace I felt, 

" That silent awe that dares not move." 
I continued in speechless wonder until the meet- 



REV. J. O. PECK, D.D. 297 

ing closed, and was wrapped in adoration. The 
Spirit sealed these words on my heart, which have 
been ever since the sweetest verse in the Bible to 
me: " Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose 
mind, is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee/' 
My soul knew that peace, and was subdued and filled 
with it. I continued through the night in that si- 
lent bliss; but the next morning at the stand I 
confessed the gracious work that Christ had wrought. 
As I testified my soul caught fire and my words 
burned with love, and yet peace was the supreme 
consciousness. I returned home that day and, at 
the first opportunity declared to my own flock the 
fullness of Christ that had been bestowed. 

And this experience I have never lost— not al- 
ways equally clear and conspicuous, but ever a sacred 
deposition in my heart. Certain results have fol- 
lowed this experience or attended it in my ministry : 

1. My soul has been one with God. I have not 
had an ambition or plan or purpose that was not 
formed in the desire to glorify God. Not perfect, 
nor faultless, nor mistakenless, nor errorless, yet 
the whole purpose of my life has been to please him. 

2. I have had a greater love for my work. I al- 
ways loved it intensely, but it has seemed to possess 
me. The salvation of dying men has been a passion. 
I love the work with glowing affection. 

3. Greater results have followed my ministry. 
More souls have been converted each year — two or 



298 FORTY WITNESSES, 

three times more. I have had power unknown be- 
fore to persuade sinners to come to Christ. 

4. My intellectual work was at once vastly stim- 
ulated. I have studied twice as much each year. 
My thought has been clearer and my love for pa- 
tient thinking more ardent. 

5. Perfect love has reigned in my soul. I have 
not slept a night since that camp-meeting with a 
bitter or vindictive or unchristian feeling toward a 
human being. It is easy to love men. I have ex- 
perienced my share of occasions for the exhibition 
of unsanctified human nature, but it does not spring 
up. I judge it is not there. 

6. I have had an aversion to argument or con- 
troversy on the subject of Christian perfection. I 
dare not speculate. I dare not mix my little human 
philosophy with the great divine truth and the 
divine experience. This instinctive shrinking from 
polemic or speculative methods of treating this sub- 
ject has, perhaps, made me misunderstood by reason 
of my silence. Any movement which has seemed 
to isolate or differentiate holiness from the tra- 
ditional teachings of Christianity has not com- 
manded my convictions. I do not condemn others, 
but obey my own convictions. 

" My soul doth magnify the Lord " for this ex- 
perience which has doubled my joys, and, if I may 
judge, doubled the effectiveness of my imperfect 
ministry. J. O. PECK. 



PHCEBE PALMER. 299 



XI. 

PHCEBE PALMER. 

(METHODIST.) 

?HCEBE PALMER was born in New York city, 
December 18, 1807. She gave herself to the 
Saviour in childhood. She always had great con- 
scientiousness, profound admiration of goodness, a 
longing for a higher life, and a wish to honor Christ 
that tempted her to envy the martyr's crown. After 
a great struggle in 1837 s ^ e experienced " perfect 
love." The following extracts from her diary, as 
found in her Life and Letters, will faintly reveal the 
struggles and growth of her Christian character : . 

November 24, 1827. — O, what a lack in my relig- 
ious experience ! I am so often fearful and unbe- 
lieving. I shrink from crosses and often bring con- 
demnation upon my soul. I approve of the things 
that are excellent, but am wanting in courage, faith, 
and fervor. If the flames that consumed the martyrs 
were before me, and the command given that I 
should pass through them, it seems to me that I 
would at once leap through the fire, and yet, strange 
to say, my timid nature too often shrinks when duty 



3<X) FORTY WITNESSES. 

is presented. Too painfully do I know the mean- 
ing of the poet : 

" 'Tis worse than death my God to love, 
And not my God alone." 

April 28, 1832. — I am getting along feebly in the 
divine life, not so much lacking in good purposes as 
in carrying out my ever earnest resolve. 

I ought to be more openly active. 

I lack faith and courage. 

August 8, 1835. — The Lord has given me a long- 
ing desire for purity. I am sure I would not know- 
ingly keep back any thing from God. But alas ! 
there must be some hinderance. 

July 27, 1837. — I never made much progress in 
the career of faith until I most solemnly resolved, in 
the strength of the Lord Jehovah, that I would do 
every duty, though I might die in the effort. From 
that hour my course was onward. Between the 
hours of eight and nine o'clock yesterday I was led 
by the Spirit to the determination that I would 
never rest, day nor night, until I knew that the spring 
of every motive was pure and that the consecration 
I made of myself was wholly accepted. 

That the covenant might be well ordered and 
sure I thought " let me particularize taking every 
step, so that not one may ever have to be retraced." 
The first object presented to be given up was one 
with which every fiber of my being seemed inter- 
woven. With amazement I asked, can it be that the 



PHCEBE PALMER. 301 

Lord requires that this one beloved object, dearer 
to me than life itself, be bound to the altar? What 
shall I have to live for if I give up this object ? 
The Holy Spirit suggested, " Have you not often 
said to the Lord, your Redeemer, * I take thee as 
my only portion ! ' Now, God is taking you at your 
word." 

" What a sacrifice," said the tempter. " Did you 
ever hear of such a sacrifice being required at the 
hand of any one?" 

Here the tender, loving Spirit interposed. " Did 
Abraham know why he was called to give up Isaac 
at the time he gave him up ? But he knows now. 
And are you willing to wait till you get to heaven 
in order to know why the Lord demands this sacri- 
fice at your hand ? " My soul replied, " Yes ! Lord, 
I will wait till knowledge is made perfect. Take 
this object if thou dost require. Take life or friends 
away. I am wholly thine ! There is not a tie that 
binds me to earth. Every tie has been severed." 

" Perhaps there is something that you do not 
know of, not yet given up," whispered the tempter. 

"What will not a man give for his life? and I 
have given up that which is dearer to me than life. 
I make no provision for future emergencies, resolved 
hereafter, as God shall reveal his will, to say, * Be- 
hold thy willing servant ! ' " 

Arriving at this point the enemy had no further 
ground for questioning, relative to the consecration, 



302 FORTY WITNESSES. 

whether it was entire, absolute and unconditional. 
From the depths of my being I felt that the con- 
secration was absolute and universal and in view of 
all coming time. But at this point I was for a mo- 
ment perplexed with the question — 

" How do you know that God will receive you? " 
And here I paused and pondered, " How may I 
know that the Lord does receive me?" To this, 
in gentle whispers, the Spirit replied, " It is written, 
I will receive you." " Must I believe it because it 
simply stands written, without any other evidence 
than the word of God?" I exclaimed. 

In answer to these questionings the ever-blessed 
Spirit (given to guide us into all truth) suggested, 
" Suppose you should hear a voice speaking in tones 
of thunder from heaven, saying, ' I will receive you/ 
would you not believe it then ? " I could not help 
believing it then, because I should have the " ev- 
idence of my senses," was my reply. 

In a moment I saw the inconsistency of my posi- 
tion, remembering that I was taught by the Script- 
ure most plainly, and had always known that the 
blessing of entire sanctification was received by 
faith, inasmuch as it stands written, " Sanctify them 
through thy truth ; thy word is truth." 

" But," said the adversary, " suppose after you 
have believed you don't feel any different, what will 
you do ? " Here the blessed word again met me, 
tniensifying the truth, " The just shall live by faith." 



PHCEBE PALMER. 303 

I now saw what faith was in all its simplicity. Such 
perceptions of the divinity of the word I never 
before had. So true is it that, u if any man will do 
His will, he shall know of the doctrine." 

I had thought of the doctrine of faith as difficult. 
Now I saw that it was only to believe heartily what 
in fact I had always professed to believe — that is, 
that the Bible is the word of God just as truly as 
though I could hear him speaking in tones of thun- 
der from Sinai's Mount, and faith is to believe it ! 

Still the enemy withstood me with the suggestion, 
" Suppose you should be called to live a long life, 
till you are threescore or a hundred years old, and 
never have any of those manifestations that others 
enjoy — never have any thing but the naked word 
of God upon which to rely — and should die and 
come up before your Judge without ever having 
had any thing but the naked word to assure your 
faith?" 

My reply was, I would come up before my 
Judge and in the face of an assembled universe say, 
" The foundation of my faith was thy immutable 
word." The moment I came to this point the 
Holy Spirit most assuringly whispered, " This is 
just the way in which Abraham, the father of the 
faithful, walked." " By faith he journeyed, not 
knowing whither he went." 

There is joy in faith. " Can it be that the Lord 
of the way is going to honor me thus, as to permit 



304 FORTY WITNESSES. 

me all along through life to tread in the foot-prints 
of the father of the faithful ?" — was the language 
of my heart. 

It was at this point that the covenant was con- 
summated between God and my soul that I would 
live a life of faith ; that however diversified life's 
current might roll — though I might be called to en- 
dure more complicated and long-continued trials of 
my faith than were ever before conceived of, or even 
brought to a climax, where, as with the father of 
the faithful, commands and promises might seem to 
conflict — I would still believe, though I might die 
in the effort. I would hold on in the death struggle. 
In the strength of Omnipotence I laid hold on 
the word, " I will receive you ! " 

Faith apprehended the written word not as a 
dead letter, but as the living voice of the living God. 
" Holy men of God spake as they were moved by 
the Holy Ghost. " The holy Scriptures were inten- 
sified to my mind as the lively or living oracles — the 
voice of God to me as truly as though I could every 
moment hear him speaking in tones of thunder from 
Sinai. And now that, through the inworkings of 
the Holy Spirit, I had presented all my redeemed 
powers to God, through Christ, how could I doubt 
his immutable word, "I will receive you?" 

O, with what light, clearness and power, were the 
words invested, " Sanctify them through thy truth, 
thy word is truth ! " 



PHCEBE PALMER. 305 

Yet, though I knew that it could not be other- 
wise than that God did receive me, my faith was at 
once put to the test. I had expected that some 
wonderful manifestation would at once follow as the 
reward of my faith. But I was shut up to faith — 
naked faith in a naked promise. 

The next step, faith, in regard to divine accept- 
ance of all, had also been distinctly taken. And 
now, as I plainly saw the third step clearly defined 
in the word, I took the advanced ground — con- 
fession. 

Giving God the glory due to his name, I exclaimed, 
" Through thy grace alone I have been enabled to 
give myself wholly and forever to thee. Thou hast 
given thy word, assuring me that thou dost receive. 
I believe that word ! Alleluia ! the Lord God Om- 
nipotent reigneth unrivaled in my heart. Glory be 
to the Father ! Glory be to the Son ! Glory be to 
the Holy Spirit forever ! " O, into what a region of 
light, glory and purity, was my soul at this moment 
ushered ! I felt that I was but as a drop in the 
ocean of infinite love, and Christ was all in all. 

If any one had asked me previous to this, " Are 

any of the graces of the Spirit perfected in you ? " 

I might have said, " I am, indeed, greatly deficient 

in all the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit ; but 

if one grace is nearer perfected than another it is 

the grace of humility.'' But never before did I 

know the meaning of the word humility. How the 
20 



306 FORTY WITNESSES. 

realization was intensified to my mind, " Not by 
works of righteousness that we have done ! " I saw 
that I was not sufficient of myself to think a good 
thought, much less to perform a righteous action. 
I felt that I could not save myself even for one mo- 
ment, and from the depths my soul cried out, 

" Every moment, Lord, I need 
The merit of thy death." 

September 9, 1837. — After retiring last evening, 
being much fatigued in body, my sleep was very 
confused, and though my confidence was not in the 
least shaken, yet that near communion and distinct- 
ness of perception of the persons of the Trinity 
which had made any approaches through faith to 
the throne so effectual and soul-transforming was 
hindered. I felt the fullest assurance that it was the 
tempter. I arose and pleaded with the Lord, and 
though the cloud was not then removed, yet such was 
the assurance I felt that it was the bufferings of 
Satan for a short season that I almost rejoiced in 
expectation of the glory that would subsequently 
be revealed. I retired, but soon awoke in a most 
triumphant frame of mind. 

November 20, 1837. — I have felt for some time 
past most intense desires after conformity to God. 
The breathings have not been unavailing. I would 
thankfully acknowledge that an increase of spiritual 
life has been the result, but I feel that I do not in- 
dulge sufficiently in the spirit of praise. 



\ 



PHCEBE PALMER. 307 

June 20, 1841. — For some months past I have 
been called to pass through scenes of unusual trial, 
ordeals of spiritual and mental conflict. Though 
deeply conscious of many shortcomings, grace has 
sustained. 

1843. — I find.it somewhat crossing to the flesh to 
abstain, (as it is my custom on Friday,) to-day, a 
little more than usual, as it excites some observa- 
tion which could not well be avoided, an excellent 
dinner being prepared for us. My health will not 
permit my fasting, as a general thing, wholly, but I 
find it well to observe the day in frequent acts of 
self-denial. Paul says, ■" I keep my body under." 
I find it helpful to my spiritual health to do like- 
wise. To-day I had reason to be thankful that I 
>did so. 

August 21 , 1845. — Though not always fully able 
from sensible assurance to pronounce an onward 
course, yet, as Brother Hamline has said, " When the 
mists have eleared away we have found, though 
driven about, that our heavenly Pilot has carried 
us safely and surely onward." 

January 19, 1847. — Temptations complicated and 
diverse abound. O, God! my heavenly Father, 
grant that in all I may be more than conqueror. 

November 27, 1853. — Returned home last night 
ill. Unmistakable symptoms indicated several days* 
indisposition. I asked the Lord that he would 
restore me and cause me to rise with comfortable 



3<d8 forty witnesses. 

health in the morning, unless it would be more to 
his glory that I should be ill. I felt that the Lord 
heard me and knew that the answer would be such 
as would glorify him. This morning, at the com- 
mand of Him who spake and diseases obeyed his 
word, I arose in comfortable health. 

January I, 1856. — I feel that my union with God 
is inward, vital, and real. Most consciously do I 
realize that all my interests are identified with the 
interests of Christ's kingdom. If this should be my 
last testimony I would wish to say before God, 
angels, and men, that from my own heart experiences 
I know that God can, through the power of the 
Holy Spirit, so subdue the heart as to bring the 
whole soul into a joyous obedience to Christ. 

February 25, 1857. — Through the grace of our 
Lord Jesus Christ I believe I can say that I have 
never given way to discouragements during the past 
twenty years. 

October 13, 1872. — The human and the divine are 
so closely identified that continual watchfulness is 
necessary or we may at unawares walk after our 
own spirit instead of the Spirit of God, 

June 13, 1872. — O, yes! this body is the temple 
of the Holy Ghost. Whence this absence of all 
desire to live for self? Whence these ceaseless 
inworkings to work, live, think and speak for God ? 
Whence this absorbing, controlling love for God 
and his cause ? Conscious, deeply conscious, that I 



PHCEBE PALMER. 309 

have received the sentence of death in myself, 
whence this realization of reliance, momentary 
reliance, on him that raiseth the dead ? 

October 5, 1873. — I am daily apprehending more 
fully not only that salvation is by faith, but that 
salvation in all its degrees is the result of a mo- 
mentary act. 

She died, in the joys and triumphs of salvation, 
November 2, 1874. 



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